Women of Versailles : the court of Louis XIV

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THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.

QUEEN MARIE-THÉRÈSE.

WOMEN OF UERSAILLES

THE

COURT OF LOUIS XIV.

IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND

TRA2VSLA TED B

ELIZABETH GILBERT MARTIN

14tl TH PORTRAITS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNERS
I9o6

SONS

COPYRIGHT, X893 , BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'$ SONS

CONTENTS

1

INTRODUOTION ...........................................
CHP'IR
I. THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES ..................... 29
II. 41
III. 54
IV. 67
86

VL
VII.
IX.
'X.

XI.
XII.
 XIII.
XIV.

Lous XIV. AND HIS COURT IN 1682 ...............
QUEEN MARIE THR-SE ..........................
MADAME DE MONTESPAN ZN 1682 ..................
MADAME DE MAINTENON IN 1682 ..................

THE BAVARIAN DAUPHINESS ...................... 103
THE MARRIAGE OF MADAME DE MAINTENON ....... 117
MADAME DE MAINTENONS APARTMENT ............. 128
THE MAIQUSE DE CAVLUS ....................... 143
MADAME DE MAINTENON AND THE GENTLEWOMEN
OF SANT-CYI ................................. 157
THE DUCHESS OF 0RLEANS ........................ 167
MAAME DE MANTENON AS A POLITICAL WOMAN o o 183
MADAME DE MAINTENONçS LETTERS ............... 198
THE 0LD AGE OF MADAME DE MONTESPAN ........ 207

ri CO.N T.E1V T

XV. THE DUGHTEaS OF LouIs XIV ................... 215
XVI. THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY ...................... 229
CONCLUSION. THE To»lEs ............................... 248
INDEX .................................................. 259

THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.

I17 T.R O1) U C, T I O.Y

ARELY bas a city presented a spectacle so
striking as that afforded by Versailles during
the struggle of the army against the Commune.
Between the grand century and our epoch, between
the maiesty of old France and the intestine broils of
new France, between the dismal horrors of which
Paris was the scene and the radiant souvenirs of
the city of the Sun-King, there was a contrast as
lainful as it was startling. Those avenues where
one might see the head of the government and the
illustrious defeated man of Reichshoffen, that place
of arms encumbered with cannons, those red flags,
sad trophies of the civil war, which were taken to
the Assembly as tokens of mourning as well as
of victory, that magnificent palace whence seemed
to issue a suppliant voice adjuring our soldiers to
save so fair a heritage of historic splendors and
national grandeurs, all filled the soul with lrofound
emotion.
1

 THE COUIT OF LOUIS .XIi.

At that hour of anguish when men experienced a
but too well-founded anxiety us to what was to be-
corne of the hostages when they knew that Paris
was the prey of flames, and wondered whether a heap
of cinders might not be all that would remain of the
modern Babylon, the capital of the world,--th.e Pan-
theon of all our glories seemed to reproach us and
excite us to remorse. The France of Charlemagne
and of Suint Louis, of Louis XIV. and of Napoleon,
protested against that odious France which the men
of the Commune had the pretension to call into ex-
istence on the ruins of our honor. We seemed then
the sport of un evil dream. There was something
strange and unwonted in the noise of arms which
disturbed the approaches of this chateau, the calm
and majestic necropolis of absolute monarchy, whose
chapel seemed, us one might say, to be its cata-
flque I
Even in those cruel days whose souvenirs will
never be effaced from my memory, I was incessantly
haunted by the shade of Louis XIV. I had at the
time a desire to revisit his apartments. They were
partilly occupied by the personnel of the Ministry
of Justice and the Assembly Committees. But the
chamber of the great King had been respected, and
no functionary had ventured to trausform the sanc-
tury of royalty into un office. In our democratic
century I did hot contemplate without respect this
chamber where the sovereign lar excellence died like
a king and a Christian. What reflections did not

INTR OD UCTIO.N 3

the incomparable Gallery of Mirrors arouse in moi
At intervals of several days it had been a hall of
triumph, an ambulance, and a dormitory. There,
surrounded by all the German princes, our conqueror
had proclaimed the new German Empire. There the
wounded Prussians of Buzenval had been carried.
There the deputies of the National Assembly had
slept in the early days of their coming to Versailles.
Sad vicissitudes of destinyl This glittering gal-
ery, this asylum of monarchical splendors, this place
of ecstasy, of apotheosis, where the pencil of Lebrun
has revived the splendors of paganism and mythology,
this modern Olympus where the imagination evokes
so many brilliant phantoms, where French aristocracy
cornes to life again with its elegance and pride, its
luxury and courage, this gallery of fêtes which hs
been crossed by so many great mon, so many famous
beauties, in what painful circumstances, las! was
it granted me to revisit it. From one of the win-
dows I saw that superb view in which Louis XIV.
perceived nothing which was not himself; for this
garden, created by him, filled the entire horizon.
My eyes rested on this vanquished nature; these
waters brought hither by dint of art, and gushing in
none but regular designs; on this vegetable rchitec-
ture which prolongs and complotes the architecture
of stone and marble; on these shrubs which grow
with docility under line and square. I compared
the harmonious regularity of the park to the inco-
herent art of revolutionary epochs, and at the mo-

4 THE COURT OF LOUIS vIIZ.

ment when the star which Louis XIV. had taken
for his device was about to sink below the horizon,
like the symbol of departed royalty, I said to my-
self: This sun will reappear to-morrow as radiant as
superb. O France, will it be the saine with thy
glory ?
I was then preoccupied with him whom Pelisson
styled the visible miracle, the potentate in whose
honor the possibilities of marble, bronze, and incense
were exhausted, and who, to use one of Bossuet's
expressions, bas not even had possession of his
sepulchre. Has God, I asked myself, pardoned him
that Asiatic pride which ruade him a sort of Belshaz-
zar or Christian Nebuchadnezzar ? What notion does
the sovereign who sang with tears of emotion the
hymns composed in his honor by Quinault, now
entertain of earthly grandeurs? Is his soul still
affected by our interests, our passions, or is this
world a grain of sand, an atom in the immense uni-
verse, too paltry to win attention from those who
have fathomed the mysteries of eternity ? What does
the great King think of his Versailles, the temple of
absolute royalty, which was to be its tomb before
rime should bave darkened its gilded ceilings?
What is his opinion of our discords, our miseries,
and our humiliations ? He who retained so bitter a
memory of the troubles of the Fronde, what judg-
ment does he pass on the excesses of existing democ-
racy ? Did his French and royal soul shudder when,
in this hall decomted with pictures of his triumphs,

I1VTROD UCTIO1V 5

the new muster of Strusbourg and Metz restored that
empire of Germany which France had taken centuries
to destroy? What a contrast between our reverses
and the superb frescoes which adorn the ceiling!
Victory extends its rapid wings. Renown blows
its trumpet. Borne upon a cloud and followed by
Terror, Louis XIV. holds the thunderbolt in his
hands. The Rhine, which had been resting on its
urn, rises in amazement at the speed with which the
monarch traverses the waters, and drops its helm
through fright. Conquered cities are personified us
weeping captives. This wounded lion is Spain;
Germany is that eagle flung to earth. Even while
.gazing mournfully at these dazzling and ostentatious
paintings, I recalled these words of Massillon:
"What remains to us of these great names which
formerly played so brilliant a part in the universe?
We know what they were during the little interval
their splendor lasted, but who knows what they are
in the eternal region of the dead ?"
With my mind full of these thoughts I descended
that marble staircase at the head of which Louis
XIV. had awaited the aged Cond6, enfeebled by
years and wounds, and mounting it but slowly: "Do
not hurry yourself, cousin," said the monarch to him,
"one cannot go up very fast when, like you, he is
burdened by so many laurels."
In the evening I wished to see again the statue of
the great King whose memory had so keenly im-
pressed me throughout the day. The night was

6 THE COURT OF LOUIS .XIV.

serene. Its sweet and meditative beauty inspired
regret for the furies and disturbances of men. Its
silence was interrupted by the noise of the fratrici-
dal artillery which thundered in the distance. It
seemed tobe in honor of Louis XIV. that the senti-
nels mounted guard in this place where he had so
oten reviewed his troops. By the light of the stars
I contemplated the majestic statue of him who was
more than a king. On his colossal horse he ap-
peared to me like the glorious personification of the
right which bas been called divine.
|
Republican or monarchical, France should disown
no part of a past like this. The history of such a
sovereign can but inspire ber with lofty ideas, with
sentiments worthy of ber and of him as well. He
struggled to the last against the powers in coalition,
and when that unique word, the King, was pro-
nounced in Europe, every one knew what monarch
was intended. Ah that statue is truly the image of
the man accustomed to conquer, to dominate, and to
reign, of the potentate who overcame rebellion more
easily with a glance than Richelieu with the axe.
Let the leaders of the revolutionary school try in
vain to scratch this imperishable bronze with their
puny nails. The mud they would like to fling af
the monument will hot even reach its pedestal.
That night when the cannons of the Commune were
answering those of Mont-ValCien, the statue seemed
to me more imposing than usual. One might bave
thought it animated like that of the Commander.

I.Y TR OD UCTI01 7

The gesture was somehow haughtier and more im-
perious than in less troublous rimes. Staff in hand,
the great King, looking toward Paris, seemed to be
saying to the insurgent city like the marble guest
to Don Juan: Repent.

II

Trr profound impression which was made on me
by Versailles during the days of the Commune is
far from having been weakened since that moment.
Very unlooked-for circumstances caused the Queen's
apartments to be occupied more than a year by the
political administration of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. My modest work-table was placed for a year
at the end of the hall of the Grand-Couvert, opposite
the picture which represents the Doge Imperiali
humbling himself before Louis XIV. and I had
rime to reflect on the strange vicissitudes, the ca-
prices of destiny, in consequence of which the
employees of the Ministry, among whom I was,
had been camped, as it were, in the middle of these
legendary halls.
The rive rooms which compose the Queen's apart-
ment all possess importance from the historic point
of view. The most curious souvenirs attach to each
of them. You have just ascended the marble stair-
case. There is a door at your right, which you
enter. It is the hall of the Queen's guards. It
was here, at six o'clock in the morning of October

8 THE COURT OP" .LOUIS XIV.

6, 1789, that the body-guards, victims of popular
fury, defended so courageously the entry to Marie
Antoinette's apartment against a hand of assassins.
The next hall is that of the Grand-Couvert, where
the queens dined ceremoniously in company with
the kings. These formal banquets took place sev-
eral rimes a week, and the public were admitted to
be spectators of them.
Marie Antoinette had submitted to this barbarous
custom hot merely when Queen, but also when
Dauphiness. "The Dauphin dined with ber," says
Madame Campan in ber Memoirs, "and each house-
hold of the royal family had its public dinner every
day. The ushers admitted everybody who was neatly
dressed; this spectacle delighted the provincials; at
the dinner hours one met nobody on the staircases
but honest folks who, after having seen the Dauphi-
ness eat ber soup, were going to see the princes eat
their boiled beef, and who would then run breath-
lessly to see Mesdames eat their dessert."
Next to the hall of the Grand-Couvert cornes the
Salon of the Queen. The sovereign's drawing-room
was held here, and the presentations ruade. Her
seat was placed at the foot of the hall, on a platform
covered with a canopy, the screw-rings of which
may still be seen in the comice opposite the win-
dows. Here shone the famous beauties of the court
of Louis XIV. before the King took to confining
himself to Madame de Maintenon's apartments.
Hither came incessantly President Hénault and tho

1.3[ TR O.D U C T I O.N" 9

Duke de Luynes to chat with that amiable and good
Marie Leczinska in whom every one took pleasure
in recognizing the virtues of a woman of the middle
classes, the manners of a great lady, and the dignity
of a queen. Here Marie Antoinette, the sovereign
with the figure of a nymph, the gait of a goddess on
the clouds, the sweet yet imperious aspect befitting
the daughter of Coesars, received, with that royal air
of protection and benevolence, that enchanting pres-
tige the wondrous memory of which foreigners car-
ried throughout Europe.
The next room is that which evokes more mem-
ories than all the others. Perhaps there is in no
dther palace a hall so adapted to impress the imagi-
nation. It is the Queen's bed-chamber, the cham-
ber where two queens hure died, Marie Thgrèse
and Marie Leczinska, and two dauphinesses, the
Dauphiness of Bavaria and the Duchess of Bur-
gundy, m the chamber where nineteen princes and
princesses of the blood bave been born, among them
two kings, Philip V., King of Spain, and Louis
XV., King of France, m the chamber which for more
than a century beheld the great joys and supreme
agonies of the ancient monarchy.
This chamber bas been occupied by six women:
first by the virtuous Marie Thgrèse, who was in-
stalled there May 6, 1682, and breathed her last sigh
there, July 30, of the following year; afterwards by
the wife of the Grand Dauphin, the Bavarian Dauphi-
ness, who died there April 20, 1690, at the age of

10 TH.E COURT OF LOUIS XIV.

twenty-nine; then by the charming Duchess of Bur-
gundy, who entering it on ber rrival at Versailles,
brought into the world there three princes of whom
only the last one lived and reigned under the title
of Louis XV., and died there, February 12, 1712, at
the age of twenty-six; next by Marie Anne Victoire,
Infanta of Spain, who was affianced to the young
King of France, and who lived there from June,
172 °, until April, 1725, when the projected marriage
was broken off; next by the pious Marie Leczinska,
who was installed in this chamber December 1, 1725,
gave birth there to ber ten children, lived there dur-
ing a reign of foty-three years, and died there June
34, 1768, surrounded by universal veneration; and
finally by the most poetic of all women, by ber who
resumes in herself all majesties and all sorrows, all
triumphs and all humiliations, all joys and all tears,
by ber whose very naine inspires emotion, tenderness,
and respect,--by Marie Antoinette.
During a period of nineteen years, from 1770 to
1789, she occupied this chamber. Here were born
her four children. Here she came near dying, De-
cember 20, 1778, when bringing ber first daughter,
the future Duchess of Angoulême, into the world.
Custom demanded numerous witnesses at a sover-
eign's lying-in. An ancient and barbarous etiquette
authorized the people to enter the King's palace
under such circumstances. From early morning the
approaches to the ch£teau, the gardens, the galleries
of the Mirrors and the OEil-de-Boeuf, the Salons, and

ITRODUCTIO. 11

the very chamber of the Queen, had been invaded by
an indiscreet and noisy crowd. Ragged chimney-
sweepers climbed upon the furniture and clung to
the draperies. This tumult increased Marie Antoi-
nette's sufferings. She lost consciousness and for
three-quarters of an hour could not be revived. The
stifling atmosphere of the room made the danger still
greater. The windows had been listed on account
of the season. Louis XVI., with a strength which
nothing but his affection for Marie Antoinette could
bave given him, succeeded in opening them,
though they had been fastened together by bands of
paper from top to bottom. The Queen came to her-
self, and her husband presented her the newly born
Princess. "Poor little one," she said to her, "you
were not desired, but you shall not be less dear. A
son would have belonged more especially to the State;
you will be mine, you shall have all my attention;
you will share my happiness and lessen my troubles."
It was here also that the two sons of the Martyr
King and Queen saw the light of day.- the one, born
October 22, 1781, died June 4, 1789, at the begin-
ning of the Revolution; the other, born March 27,
1785, under the title of Duke of Iqormandy, was
afterwards styled Louis XVII.
In this truly memorable chamber began the long
death agony of French royalty. Marie Antoinette
was sleeping here on the morning of October 6, 1789,
when she was awakened by the insurrection. At the
further end of the chamber, underneath the lnel on

12 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.

which now hangs Madame Lebrun's portrait of the
Queen, there is a little door which led, through an
anteroom, to the OEil-de-Boeuf, and thence to the
King's apartments. Through it the unhappy Queen,
menaced by the rioters who assassinated the body-
guards, escaped to seek refuge near Louis XVI. A
few minutes later, she left Versailles, never more to
see it. Since then, destiny has not permitted any
woman to pccupy the apartments of the Queen.
The year I spent in these rooms, so full of souve-
nirs, bas left a strong and serious impression on my
mind. Many a time, in winter days, at the hour
when lights were brought, I seemed to see, like
graceful phantoms, the illustrious women who bave
loved, wept, and suffered in this abode. Between
the dead and the living there is more intercourse
than people suppose; I have always believed that
celebrated personages do not lose sight, from the
height of the eternal spheres, of those who evoke
their memory while essaying, as it were, to resusci-
tate them. Then these verses of Lamartine seemed
to reach my ears like a faint, mysterious echo:q

Ah ! si c'est vous, ombres chéries,
Loin de la foule, et loin du bruit,
Revenez ainsi, chaque nuit,
Vous mêlez à mes rêveries." 1

Ah ! if it be you, dear shades,
'ar from the crowd, and far from noise,
Return thus every night,
And mingle with my reveries.

I.N TR OD U CTI O.I 13

I recalled likewise the striking words of a priest,
Père Gratry: "Does hot the human race permit itself
to say at prescrit that the dead address detailed dis-
courses to us by a conventional cipher composed of
physical shocks on wood? Shall we not abandon
these puerile illusions in order to cling to the sacred
foundation of presentiment and faith which lends a
certain credit to such chimeras ? The human race
feels and comprehends that all connection cannot be
broken off between us and those who preceded us."
The society of the dead consoles the griefs" caused
by that of the living, and there are fewer deceptions
beyond the tomb than on this side of it. During my
stay at Versailles, I became especially impassioned
for the two women who had enchanted two different
epochs, the Duchess of Burgundy and Marie Antoi-
nette. Both of them paid dear for the brief 6clat of
their triumph: one by an untimely death which the
affrighted imaginations of her contemporaries were
inclined to attribute to the effects of poison; the
other by captivity and execution. It seems a law of
destiny that all which goes beyond a certain medium
in point of grandeur and prestige shall soon be
expiated by exceptional calamities. Suffering is the
inevitable chastisement of all who become conspicu-
ous, as if the human creature were as little made for
glory as for happiness. Ah! how many times I
bave been charmed, moved, fascinated, by these two
dauphinesses who were the ravishing personification
of grace and youth and beautyI I seemed to sec

14 THE COURT OF LOUIS Xllr.

their faces. I thought I heard their voices. I
seemed a salutary proximity.
This kind of dwelling with illustrious shades;
this strange and unlooked-for dwelling in rooms
forever famous; this long contemplation of a past
fui1 of instruction and of charm; this constant and
involuntary evocation of figures poetic beyond all
others,--in a word, this whole assemblage of circum-
stances, both singular and striking, inspired me with
the first idea of the work I begin to-day. The ad-
vice of my dear master and friend, M. Feuillet de
Conches; my conversations with the eminent curator
of the Museuln of Vemailles, M. Eudore Soulié; the
assiduous reading of the leanmd work which this
indefatigable investigator bas published under the
title of Notice,--all confirmed me in my resolve, and
I bave attempted to sketch the heroines who may be
called the Women of Versailles.
Doubtless their history is known. I have no pre-
tension to write new biographies of Queen Marie
Thérèse, the Murquise de Montespan, Madame de
Maintenon, the mother of the regent, the Duchess of
Burgundy, the Duchess of Berry, the sisters de Nesle,
the Marquise de Pompadour, Madame Dubarry, the
Princess de Lamballe, Madame Elisabeth. But I
desire, without describing their entire career, to
give an account of the part they played at Ver-
sailles, to mention with exactness the apartments
they occupied there, to outline their daily existence
in detail, to restore patiently the minutioe of eti-

I.NTRODUCTIO.N 15

quette, to indicate what may be termed, to employ
one of Saint-Simon's expressions, the mechanism of
court life.
What I wish to attempt is the history of the châ-
teau of Versailles by means of the women who
dwelt there from 1682, the epoch when Louis XIV.
definitely fixed his residence there, until October
6, 1789, the fatal day when Louis XVI. and Marie
Antoinette left it to return no more. Few periods
are so curious to study as this one of a hundred and
seven years. The sanctuary of absolute monarchy
was to be its tomb, and the theatre of apotheoses was
destined to be also that of humiliations and afflic-
tions.
If is hOt merely the ancient memoirs, those of
Dangeau, Saint-Simon, the Princess Palatine, and
Madame de Caylus, for the reign of Louis XIV. ;
those of the Duke de Luynes, the advocates Barbier
and Marais, of Duclos and Madame du Hausset, for
that of Louis XV. ; of Baron de Bezenval, Madame
Campan, Count de S6gur, and Baroness Oberkirch,
for that of Louis XVI., to which we shall recur in
this labor. We shall also male use of the patient
investigations of modern science, the researches of
Sainte-Beuve, De loailles, Lavallge, Walckenaër,
Feuillet de Conches, Le Roi, Souli6, Rousset, Pierre
C16ment, Campardon, Goncourt, d'Arneth, Lescure,
and many historians, many distinguished critics.
Assuredly, there are many persons who are thoroughly
acquainted with all these historie treasures. I have

16 THE COURT OF LOUIS XII r.

no thought of instructing such erudite persons, and
I know very well that I am but the obscure disciple
of these masters.
But perhps there are some worldly people who
will hot blme me for hving studied so mny works
on their behlf, seeking through the women of the
courts of three kings the resurrection of a past which
present struggles cnnot banish from our minds.
My desire will be to repeople these deserted halls, to
make the procession of the dead file by, to sure up
briefly the lessons of morlity, history, psychology,
and religion which issue from the most grandiose of
erthly palaces. My the women of Versailles be to
me so many Ariadnes in this mrvellous labyrinth!

III

NETHEI Mazrin's nieces nor la grande Made-
moiselle, neither Henrietta of England nor the
Duchesses of La Vllière and Fontanges, should be
considered s women of Versailles. At the period
when these heroines were shining in all their splen-
dor, Versailles ws not yet the official residence of
the court nd the set of government. We do not
begin this study until 1682, the year when Louis
XIV., quitting Sint-Germain, his habituel abode,
estblished himself definitively in the residence
which he preferred.
During a centurymfrom 1682 to 1789--how
many curious womanly figures will apper upon this

I.NTRODUCTI02 17

radiant scenel What vicissitudes in their desti-
nies I What singularities and contrasts in their
charactersI 'Tis the good Queen Marie Th6rèse,
gentle, virtuous, resigned, making herself loved
and respected by all honest people. 'Tis the imperi-
ous mistress, the proud sultana, the woman of bril-
liant, mocking, cutting wit, whose court is "the
centre of pleasures, of fortune, of hope and of terror
to the ministers and generals of the army, and of
humiliation to all France," the haughty, the all-
powerful Marquise de Montespan.
 'Tis the woman whose character is an enigma and
whose lire a romance, who has known by turns all
the extremities of good and evil fortune, and who,
with more rectitude than openness of heart, more
justice than grandeur, has ai least the merit of hav-
ing reformed the life of a man whose very passions
had been extolled as if divine: Madame de Main-
tenon. 'Tis the Princess Palatine, the wife of Mon-
sieur the King's brother, the mother of the future
regent, ugly, correct in morals cynical in the ex-
pressions of her correspondence, a frantic German,
railing at her new country, impersonating Satire at
the side of Apotheosis, exaggerating in her letters the
rage of an Alcestis in petticoats, rustic and almost
Diogenic, but witty, more pitiless, more caustic, more
vehement than Saint-Simon himself, strange woman
of the brusque, impetuous style--the style which,
as Sainte-Beuve says, has a beard on its chin, and of
which one can hardly say, when it is translated from

18 THE COUtT OF LOUIS II r.

German into French, whether it most resembles
Rabelais or Luther.
'Tis the Duchess of Burgundy, the sylph, the
siren, the enchantress of the old King, the Duchess
of Burgundy, whose premature death was the signal
for the last agony of a court once so dazzling.
Then, under Louis XV., 'tis the sisters De Nesle
who are infuriated for the heart of the young King,
and who sometimes wrangle over their conquest, and
sometimes unite their forces to reign in common.
'Tis the virtuous, the sympathetic Marie Leczinska
who plays the saine honorable but minor part with
Louis XV. that Marie Thérèse had done with Louis
XIV. 'Tis the Marquise de Pompadour who, in
spite of the subtlety of ber intelligence and the
power of ber attractions, always remains a parvenue,
a magician ccustomed to all the enchantments, all
the marvels, all the refinements of elegance, but who,
according to Voltaire, her pologist and courtier, is
after all nothing more th,n a sort of grisette ruade
for the opera and the seraglio.
'Tis Madame Dubarry, a low courtesan disguised
as a countess, and destined by the irony of rate to
shake the foundations of the throne of Saint Louis,
of Henry IV., and of Louis XIV. Then, under the
reign which is not the epoch of scandal and which
is yet that of expiation, 'tis Madame Elisabeth, a
nature essentially French, displaying not merely
courage but gaiety in the most horrible catastrophes,
Malame Elisabeth, the angel that heaven caused ta

ITR OD UCTI01 19

appear in the revolutionary hell; 'ris the Princess
de Lamballe, the gracious and touching heroine of
friendship and duty; 'ris Marie Antoinette, whose
mere naine is more pathetic, more eloquent, than
all words.
In the careers of these women what historical
instructions, and also what lessons in psychology
and morals there are! What could make us better
understand the court, "that region where joys are
visible but false, and vexations hidden but real,"
the court "which does hot give contentment and
which does prevent its being found elsewhere ,,?1
Do hOt all the women of Versailles say fo us:
"The condition which is apparently the happiest
bas secret bitternesses which corrupt all ifs felicity.
The throne is like the lowest place in being the
seat of torments; superb palaces bide cruel anxieties
like the roofs of the poor and the laborious, and,
lest our exile should become too pleasing fo us,
we feel everywhere and always that something is
wanting to our happiness. ''2
A portrait by Mignard, engraved by Nanteuil,
represents tlle Duchess de La Vallière with ber chil-
dren: Mademoiselle de Blois and the Count de Ver-
mandois. She looks pensive, and is holding in her
hand a reed pipe af the end of which floats a soap-
bubble, with these words: Thus passes the glory of

1 Lu Bruyère, De la co«r.
 Massillon, çermon sur les a2ictions.

30 THE COURT OF LOUI .,It r.

the world. Sic transit gloria qnundi. Might not
this be the device of all the heroines of Versailles ?
The general impression arising from history is
that of melancholy. The life of every celebrated
woman is a commentary on Fontaine's line:-
,, 1i l'or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux." 
All is brilliant on the surface, all gloomy in
the depths. The court beauties cannot dispel black
care by waving their fans. There are more lees
than nectar in their golden banqueting-cups. Their
paint does not hide their pallor, and tears often
flow in torrents under their masks. Just as splen-
did mausoleums hide the worms of the sepulchre
beneath their ornaments of bronze and marble, so
these sad hearts, garmented with brocade and gold,
are abodes of secret tortures and excruciating ago-
nies. They can all say with Madame de Sévign6,
who was nevertheless rich, honored, brilliant, and
seemingly happy: "I find death so terrible that I
hate life more because it leads me thither than be-
cause of the thorns which bestrew it. Will you tell
me then that I must wish to live forever? Not at
all; but if my opinion had been asked, I would much
rather have died in my nurse's arms; that would
bave rid me of many ennuis, and would have given
me heaven very surely and very easily." 

Neither gold nor grandeur makes us happy.
Madame de Sévign&, Letter of Match 16, 1672.

I.ITROD UCTIO.N

Apropos of the death of the Queen of Spain, the
Princess Palatine, wife of the brother of Louis XIV.,
wrote: "I hear and see every day so many villanous
things that it disgusts me with life. You have good
reason to say that the good Queen is now happier
than we are, and if any one would do me, as to her
and her mother, the service of sending me in twenty-
four hours from this world to the other, I would cer-
tainly bear them no ill will." 1
Madame de Montespan was ill at ease even before
that hour of great expiations when she wa obliged,
trembling with rage, to descend the marble staircase
of Versailles, never again to mount it. As in the
fairy tales, grand palaces, carriages with six horses,
diamonds, and splendid attire sprang up under the
feet of the resplendent favorite. And yet at the
same time, Madame de Sgvigng, always a skilled
observer, wrote concerning the triumphant mistress
who was the object of all favors and idolatries: "The
attachment is still extreme, enough has been ruade
of it to annoy the curg and every one else, but per-
haps not enough for her, for there is something sad
underneath her external triumph." «
The rival who, contrary to all expectation, sup-
planted Madame de Montespan; the prodigiously
clever woman who, according to a very just expres-
sion of M. C,pefigue, was for so many years the sick-

Letters of the Princess Palatine, March 20, 1689.
Madame de Svign ! Letter of July 311 1675.

2 THE COURT OF LOUIS .XIV.

nurse of a soul worn out with pride, love, and glory;
Madame de Maintenon wrote in the midst of ber
own splendor to Madame de La Maisonfort: "Why
cannot I give you my experience! Why cannot I
make you see the ennui which devours the great, and
the troubles that fill their days Do you not see
that I ara dying of sadness in a fortune which could
not be easily imagined? I have been young and
pretty; I have enjoyed pleasures; I bave spent years
in intellectual intercourse; I bave arrived at fayot,
and I protest to you, my dear child, that all condi-
tions leave a frightful void."
Again it is Madalne de Maintenon who said fo her
brother, Count d'Aubigné: "I can hold out no
longer; I would like to be dead." It is she who,
summing up ail the phases of ber surprising ca-
reer, wrote fo Madame de Caylus two years before
ber death: "One atones heavily for the pleasures
and intoxication of youth. I find, in looking back
at my life, that, since the age of twenty-two, which
was the beginning of my fortune, I bave not had a
moment free from sufferings, and that they bave
constantly increased." 1
The women of the reign of Louis XV. afford no
fewer subjects for philosophical reflections. These
pretended mistresses, who in reality are only slaves,
seem to present themselves one after another like

i Letter of Madame de Maintenon to Madame de Caylus Aprl
19 1771.

IN TR OD UC TIO.t 2 3

humble penitents who corne to make their apologies
to history and, like the primitive Christians, to
reveal publicly the miseries, vexations, and remorses
of their souls. They tell us what their doleful suc-
cesses amounted to. Even while their triumphal
chariot made its way through a crowd of flatterers,
their conscience hissed cruel words into their ears.
Like actresses before a whimsical and variable public,
they were always fearing lest the applause might
change into uproar, and it was with terror underly-
ing their apparent coolness that they continued fo
play their sorry part.
Do not all the favorites seem to unite in repeating
to us with Massillon: "Is it not true that the way
of the world and the passions is yet more painful
than that of the Gospel, and that the kingdom of
hell, if one may say so, suffers still more violence
than that of heaven?" If, among these mistresses
of the King, there were a single one who had enjoyed
her shameful triumphs in peace, who had called her-
self happy in the midst of her luxury and splendor,
one might have concluded that, from a merely human
point of view, it is possible to find happiness in
vice. But no; there is not even one. The Duch-
ess de Ch£teauroux and the Marquise de Pompadour
are not happier than the Duchess de La Vallière and
the Marquise de Montespan. " 'O my God,' cried
Saint Augustine, 'Thou hast ordained it, and it has
never failed to happen, that every soul that is in dis-
ord¢: hl! be its owa torment. If we taste in it

4 THE COURT OF LOUI XIr.

certain moments of felicity, it is an intoxication
which does not last. The worm of conscience is not
dead; it is only benumbed. The alienated reason
presently returns, and with it return bitter troubles,
gloomy thoughts, and cruel anxieties.' "1
Unfortunate victim of a royal caprice, the young
Duchess de Ch£teauroux, who lived but a day, "like
the flowers of the field," condenses into her brief but
tempestuous career all the miseries and deceptions
of vanity, all the tortures and anguish of physical
and moral pain. Madame de Pompadour at the
height of her favor is steeped in melancholy. Her
lady's maid, Madame du Hausset, the confidant of
her perpetual anxieties, said to her with sincere
commiseration: "I pity you, Madame, while every
one else is envying you," and the Marquise, satiated
with false pleasures, tormented with real sufferings,
remarked bitterly: "The sorceress said I would have
time to acknowledge my faults before I die; I be-
lieve it, for I shall perish of nothing but chagrin."
When she dies she is no more regretted by Louis
XV. than Mademoiselle de La Vallière and Madame
de Montespan had been by Louis XIV. From one
of the windows of Versailles, during a frightful
storm, the King saw the carriage which was taking
the favorite's coffin to Paris. "The Marquise will
hot bave fine weather for her journey," said he.
Hardly had she gone down into the grave when the

a Massillon, Panégyrique de Sainte Madeleine.

ol) UCTIO 25

poor dead woman was forgotten by ai1. The Queen
herself remarked it when she wrote te President
Hénault: "Here there is no more question of ber
who is no more than if she had never existed. Such
is the world; it is net worth the trouble of loving it."
The destinies of the heroines of Versailles are
net interesting solely frein the moral point of view,
as subjects of philosophical study, and sources of
Christian reflections. In their historical relations
also they bave what may be called a symbolical im-
portance. Certain of these wo«n sum up, in fact,
a whole society, personify an entire epoch. Madame
de Montespan, the superb, luxuriant, ample beauty
good te show te all the ambassadors; Madame de
Montespan the grande dame, proud of ber birth, her
charms, her wit, ber riches, her magnificence; the
woman whose terrible railleries ruade ber as much
feared as she was admired, se much se, in fact, that
the courtiers said they dared net pass under her win-
dows for fear of being shot at; the ostentatious,
dazzling mistress whom the ancients would bave
represented as Cybele, carrying Versailles upon her
forehead, is she net the very incarnation of haughty
and triumphant France at the culminating point of
the reign of Louis XIV., that France which resusci-
tates the pomps of paganism and envelops the radi-
ant sovereign whom if idolizes in clouds of incense ?
But the pride of the favorite will be punished like
that of her royal lever, and for ber as for him humil-
iations will succeed te triumphs.

26 THE COURT OF LOUI XIF.

The rays of the sun bave no longer the saine
splendor. The royal star which is declining bas
lost the ardor of its rires. A sincere but sometimes
rather narrow devotion cornes after those superabun-
dant sins which, to use Tertullian's expression, wish
to possess all the light and knowledge of heaven.
Madame de Maintenon, with her temperate character
and style, ber respect for order and the proprieties,
her piety which has just a hint of ostentation, is the
living symbol of the new court in which religion
replaces voluptuousness. But at the side of this
wisdom of repentant age, this reaction of austerity
against pleasure, there is still the contrast of youth.
'Tis the Duchess of Burgundy who represents this
protest of gaiety against sadness, of spring against
winter, of freedom of manners against the restric-
tions of etiquette.
After Louis XIV., the Regency. After compres-
sion, scandal. The new epoch is troublous, licen-
tious, dissolute. Is not the Duchess of Berry, so
fantastic, so capricious, so passionate, its very
image ? As to the favorites of Louis XV., their sad
history marks out for us the stages of humiliation
and the moral decadence of absolute power. At
first the King takes his mistresses from among the
great ladies, then from the middle classes, lastly
from the women of the people. He descends from
the Duchess de Châteauroux to the Marquise de
Pompadour, from the Marquise de Pompadour to
Madame Dubarry. There is a gradual diminution

I.N TR OD UCTIO.N" 2 7

of prestige and dignity. Adultery derogates. Vice
throws off all manner of disguise. And yet, even
under the reign of Louis XV., patriarchal manners,
honest and truly Christian sentiments, characters
which do honor to human nature, may here and there
be round. Queen Marie Leczinska is like the epit-
orne of these virtuous types. Her domestic hearth
is near the boudoir of the favorites, and it is she
who preserves for the court the last traditions of
decency and decorum.
Last of all cornes Mrie Antoinette, the woman
who, in the most striking and tragic of all destinies,
represents not solely the ma]esty and the griefs of
royalty, but all the graces and all the agonies, all
the joys and all the sufferings, of ber sex.

THE WOEN OF VERSAILLES

I

THE CHATEAU OF VER8AILLES

EFORE recalling the rôle played by the women
of Versailles, something must be said of the
stage on which their destinies were fulfilled, and the
miraculous transformation by which a dismal and
gloomy spot, full of quicksands and marshes, with
neither view, water, trees, nor land, was ruade anew,
as one may say, in the image of the great King, and
became a marvel admired by ai1 the world. Like
those great rivers which at their source are hardly
more than rivulets, the existence of the 10alace des-
tined one day tobe so splendid commenced in most
modest and simple proportions.
It was in 1624 that Louis XIII. had a hunting-
meet erected at Versailles on a rising ground 10re-
viously occul0ied by a windmill. In 1627, at an
assembly of notables, which met in the Tuileries,
Bassoml0ierre reproached the King with not com-
pleting the crown buildings, saying with this in-
tent: "It is hot His Majesty's inclination to build;
29

30 TI1E WOMEV OT rERSAILI, ES

the finances of the Chamber are hot exhausted by his
sumptuous edifices, unless one would like to re-
proach him with the wretched château of Versailles,
in the construction of which a private gentleman
would not tuke much pride." 1
In 1651, eight years after his father's death, Louis
XIV., then in his thirteenth year, came for the first
time to Versailles. From childhood he was attached
to this abode, and several years later he selected it
as the site of magnificent festivities. In the month
of May, 1664, he caused the performance there of the
Plaisirs de l'île enchantée, diversions borrowed from
Ariosto's poem, and towards the execution of which
Benserade and President de Périgny contributed the
recitations in verse, Molière and his troop the
comedy, Lulli the music and the ballets, and
the Italian mechanician Vigarani the decorations,
illuminations, and fireworks.
May 7, the first day of the fêtes, there was tilting
at the ring in presence of the two queens, in a
grassy circle formed at the entrance of the great alley
now called the green carpet, tapis vert. The youth-
ful Louis XIV., wearing u costume sparkling with
all the crown diamonds, represented the Paladin
Roger in the island of Alcina. After the tourney,
in which he was the victor, Flora and Apollo came
to congratulate him in chriots drawn by nymphs,

1 ,ee, on the origins of the palace, the curious and learned work
published by M. Le Roi, under the title, Lo«is YIII. et Versailles.

THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLE8 31

satyrs, and dryads. At the bancuet, Time, the
Hours, and the Seasons waited on the guests, who
were shaded by thickets of lilacs, and coppices of
myrtles and roses. The next day, May 8, the
trincesse d'JElide, a piece in which Molière played
the parts of Lyciscas and Moron, was representcd
on a stage erected in the middle of the saine great
alley; May 9, a ballet in the palace of Alcides,
which simulated its conflagration; May 10, a course
de têtes in the castle moats; May 11, a representation
of Molière's Fâcheux; May 12, a lottery in which
the prizes were pieces of furniture, silverware, and
precious stones, and in the evening, Tartuffe ; May
13, Mariage forcé; My 14, departure of the King
and court for Fontainebleau. Mademoiselle de La
Vallière had been the heroine of these fêtes, at
which Molière extolled the favorite's amours in
presence of the Queen herself.
Versailles was not yet the royal residence, but
Louis XIV. came there from rime to rime to spend
some days, and occasionally several weeks, espe-
cially when he wished to dazzle eyes and fascinate
imaginations by the brilliancy of these ostentatious
festivities which resembled apotheoses.
September 14, 1665, there was a great hunt at
Versailles, when the Queen, Madame Henrietta of
England, with Mademoiselle de Montpensier and
Mademoiselle d'Alençon, rode in amazonian cos-
tumes; in February, 1667, a tournament which over-
passed the limits .of magni.ficence.

32 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

The Gazette takes pains te describe the cortège
of court ladies, "all admirably equipped and on
selected horses, led by Madame in the most superb
vest, and seated on a white herse with trappings of
brocade sown with pearls and precious stones."
Following the feminine squadron appeared the Sun-
King, "net less easily recognized by the lofty mien
peculiar te him than by his rich Hungarian habit,
covered with gold and precious stones, his helmet
with waving plumes, and the spirited herse which
seemed prouder of carrying se great a monarch than
of ifs magnificent trappings and its jewelled saddle-
cloth. ''1 Then followed Monsieur, the King's
brother, in Turkish costume; then the Duke
d'Enghien, dressed as an Indian; then the other
noblemen, who formed ten quadrilles.
July 10, 1668, there were new rejoicings; during
the day, a representation of the Fêtes de l'Amour et
de Bacchus, words by Quinet and music by Lulli,
and of Georges Dandin, played by Molière and his
troop; in the evening a banquet and a ball; at two
in the morning illuminations. The circumference
of the parterre of Latona, the grand alley, the ter-
race, and front of the palace were decorated with
statues, vases, and chandeliers lighted in an ingeni-
eus fashion, which ruade them appear as if glowing
with interior flames. Rockets crossed each other in
the air above the château, and when all these lights

Gazette of 1667.

THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES 33

were extinguished, says Félibien, in terminating his
description of the fête, it was perceived that day,
iealous of the advantages of such a night, had
begun to dawn.
September 17, 1672, the King's troop represented
Molière's _'emmes savantes af Versailles, who were
admirdes d'un chacun, says the Gazette. Bourdaloue
preached the Lenten serinons there from February
8 to April 19, 1674; July 11, the Malade imaginaire
of Molière, who had died the previous year, was
played there; in August came a series of grand fêtes.
Flibien gives a striking description of the night of
August 31, 1674, when, under a dark and starless
sky, a mosç unheard-of tain of lights suddenly be-
came visible. All the parterres glittered. The
grand terrace in front of the château was bordered
with a double row of lights set two feet apart. The
steps and railings of the horseshoe, all the walls,
all the fountains, all the reservoirs, shone with
myriad flames. This pyrotechnic art, this blending
of tire and flowers and water which made the park
resemble the garden of Armida, had corne from Italy.
The borders of the grand canal were adorned with
statues and architectural decorations behind which
an infinity of lights had been placed to render them
transparent. The King, the Queen, and all the
court were on richly ornamented gondolas. Boats
filled with musicians followed them, and Echo
repeated the sounds of an enchanted harmony.
After the next year, great works, begun by Levau

84 THE WOME_W OF VERSAILZES

and Dorbay, continued by Jules Hardoin-Mausart,
were undertaken at Versailles, where Louis XIV.
wished fo take up his permanent residence. What
motives determined him to abandon the château of
Saint-Germain, where he was born, where he had
experienced the first sensations of love, that admi-
rably situated château whence one beholds so pic-
- turesque a forest, so beautiful a stream, so vast and
magnificent a horizon ? b[othing is lacking to Suint-
Germain, neither woods, waters, nor prospect. Its
air is keen and salubrious. It seems ruade to inspire
great thoughts, and from the heights of that unpar-
alleled terrace which leans against the forest, one
contemplates one of the most varied and majestic
panoramas of the globe.
Had Louis XIV. expended for the enlargement
and embellishment of the old château (that which is
still existing) and the new château (that which for-
merly faced the Seine and was destroyed under
Louis XVI.) one half the sums expended on Ver-
sailles, what an incomparable palace, what a marvel,
one might bave admire(l! What could hot bave
been ruade of the new château of Sùnt-Ge'main (:of
which nothing now remains but the pavilion of
Henry IV.), that elegant château whose staircases
appear from a distance like arabesques in relief
encrusted upon the side of the bill, and whose rive
successive retraces, adorned with thickets, fountains,
ad parterres of flowers, corne down to the Seine at
Pecq? How could he prefer to such a residence

THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES 35

and such a landscape, an obscure rnanor built on
ungrateful soil, surrounded by rnuddy ponds, with-
out views, without water, on an estate which, in-
stead of being favored by nature, it was necessary
to tyrannize over and subdue by force of art and
riches ?
Was it, as has been said, the distant view of the
steeple of Saint-Denis, the final terrn of royal gran-
deur, which rendered Saint-Germain so antipathetic
to Louis XIV. ? Did that steeple which frorn the
horizon seerned to be saying to hirn: "Memento homo
quia Tulvis es et in Tulverem reverteris, Rernember,
man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt
return," rebuke the pride of life and omnipotence
which overflowed in hirn ? Such a thought seerns to
us pusillaniinous. It would be unworthy of the
great King. We incline rather to the belief that
what Louis XIV. found displeasing in Saint-Ger-
main was the memory of the tirne when, driven froIn
Paris by the troubles of the Fronde, he had been
taken by night to the old château. Doubtless he
disliked to bave the capital which had insulted his
childhood constantly in view frorn his window.
To tear hirnself uway frorn an irnportunate souve-
nir; to efface cornpletely, even in thought, the last
vestiges of rebellious acts against royal authority;
fo choose a residence which was nothing, in order to
make of it the rnost radiant of palaces; to take
pleasure in this transformation as being the triurnph
of pride, of strength, of will; to create all for hirn-

36 T11E WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

self, architecture, g,rdens, fountains, horizon; fo
constrain nature to bend beneath the yoke and avow
itself vanquished, like the revolution,--such was
the dream of Louis XIV., and this dream he realized.
From 1675 to 1682, the works at Versailles were
carried on with astonishing rapidity. The grand
apartments of the King and the staircase called tht
of the Ambassadors were completed. The Gallery of
Mirrors was constructed at the spot where a terrace
occupied the middle of the façade, on the side of the
grdens. The south wing, called the Princes' wing,
ws added to the château. The buildings to right
and left of the first court in front of the ch£teu,
called the Ministers' wings, were finished. The
large and small stables were built.
Finally, in 1681, the chapel was transferred to
the present site of the Salon of Hercules and the ves-
tibule below it. April 30, 1684, Francis de Harly,
Archbishop of Paris, blessed the chapel, and on the
6th of May following, Louis XIV. definitively in-
stlled himself at Versilles. 
The King estblished himself in the very centre
of the pal,ce. The salon of the OEil-de-Boeuf 2 w
then divided into two rooms: the Bassani chamber,

1 If one wishes to get an idea of the enlargements of Versailles,
he has only to look at Van der Meulen's picture in the King's
ante-chamber (room 121 in M. Soulié's Notice du Iusée). This
picture, numbered 2145, represents Versaflles as if was beforo the
works undertaken by Louis XIV.
 Room 123 of tho _otce du 2usée.

THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES 37

so called because it contained several paintings by
that toaster, where the princes and nobles admitted to
the sovereign's levee waited; and the former cham-
ber of Louis XIII., where Louis XIV. slept, from
1682 to 1701. Adjoining this chamber was the
grand cabinet where the ceremonies of the levee and
the couchge took place, where the King gave audi-
ence to the nuncio and the ambassadors, and received
the oaths of the chier officiais of his household. 1
The next room 2 was at this period divided into two.
That nearest to the King's chamber was called the
Cabinet of the Council, and in it Louis XIV., with
his ministers, took the greatest decisions of his
reign; the other was called the Cabinet des Termes
or des I)erruçues.
The Queen and the Dauphin were lodged, the one
on the first story, the other on the ground-floor, in
the south part of the old ch£teau of Louis XIII.,
that which has a view of the orangery and the Swiss
lake. The Queen's apartments ended through the
œeeace Salon, at the Gallery of Mirrors, the master-
piece of the new Versailles. At the other extrem-
ity of the gallery began, with the War Salon,
the rooms designated as the grand apartments of the
King, state and reception rooms bearing mytho-
logical names: halls of Apollo, Mercury, Diana, and
Venus.

1 Room 124 of the otice. This room became the bedchambe
of Louis XIV., and he died there.
 alle du Conseil, No. 125 of the Votice.

8 THE WOME.N OF VER8AILLES

The governor of the palace and the King's con-
fessor lodged in the north wing, that which has since
been rebuilt by the architect Gabriel. Beyond the
site of the present chapel were placed the legitimated
children, the princes of Condé and of Conti, the
governor of the Children of France, and a goodly
number of great officiais and chaplains. The Chil-
dren of France and the Orleans family resided in the
great south hall, opposite the gardens. Finally, the
secretaries of State, the ministers of the King's
household, of foreign affairs, war, and the navy,
were installed in the two projecting buildings in
front of which are now placed the statues of cele-
brated men. These immense constructions, greatly
subdivided interiorly, served as a habitatio:t for sev-
eral thousand persons.
Versailles was finished. With very slight modi-
fications it offered the same spectacle which it.
presents to-day. Seen from the town side, the
monument, though grandiose, is incongruous. Its
composite architecture, the noticeable contrast be-
tween the brick and the stone, between the primi-
tive château and ifs immense additions, bave a some-
what astounding character. Seen from the park, on
the contrary, it is majestic, regular, and supremely
harmonious. This façade, say rather these three
façades, more than six hundred yards in width and
having altogether three hundred and seventy-five
openings into the garden; this projecting building
where the toaster dwelt, and which throws out in

THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES 39

the midst of a long right line wings which seem to
drawback as if to keep ata respectful distance¢
these thickets fashioned into walls of verdure; these
reservoirs framed in precious marbles, which seem
like so many halls in open air, dependent on the
palace of which they are the complement, --all this
profoundly impresses the eyes and the mind.
And yet it has a great defect. Hardly has one
ruade a few steps, after descending the first staircase,
when the ch£teau sinks down and disappears, like
the sun setting on the coast. Is it hot the image
of that absolute monarchy which, after shedding so
dazzling a glow, was suddenly to be extinguished
and disappear froln the horizon? Yet in spire of
this fault of perspective, the edifice has a sort of
radiant serenity, and never, perhaps, was the grm,-
deur of a man better identified with the splendor of
a palace. There is an intimate relation between the
King and his ch£teau. The idol is worthy of the
temple, the temple of the idol. There is always
something immaterial, something moral, so to speak,
in monuments, and they derive their poesy from the
thought connected with them. For a cathedral, it
is the idea of God. For Versailles, it is the idea of
the King. Its mythology, as has been justly re-
marked, is but a magnificent allegory of which Louis
XIV. is the reality. Itis he always and every-
where. Fabulous heroes and divinities impart their
attributes to him or mingle with his courtiers.
In honor of him, Neptune sheds broadcast the

40 TttE WOMEIV OF VERSAILLE8

waters which cross in air in sparkling arches.
Apollo, his favorite symbol, presides over this en-
chanted world as the god of light, the inspirer of
the Muses; the sun of the god seems to pale before
that of the great King: 1Vec Tluribus imTar. Nature
and art combine to celebrate the glory of the sover-
eign by a perpetual hosannah. Ail that generations
of kings bave amassed of pictures, statues, and
precious movables, is distributed as mere furniture
in the glittering apartments of the ch£teau. One
inhales as it were an odor of incense. The intoxi-
cating perfumes of luxury and power throw one
into a sort of ecstasy that makes comprehensible the
exaltation of this monarch, enthusiastic over him-
self, who, in chanting the hymns composed in his
praise, shed tears of admiration.

II

LOUIS X_IV. AND ]S COURT IN 1682

HEN Louis XIV. definitively established his
residence at Versailles, in 1682, the princi-
pal women of the court who were installed there
with him were the Queen, aged forty-four years,
like himself, born in 1638, married in 1660, long-
affiicted by ber husband's infidelities, and now
happy in beholding his return to more virtuous
sentiments; the Dauphiness, a Bavarian princess,
born in 1660, married in 1680, very feeble in health,
gentle and melancholy in disposition; the Duchess
of Orleans, sometimes designated as Madame and
sometimes as the Princess Palatine, born in 1652,
married in 1671 to Monsieur, the King's brother, a
German unable fo accustom herself to ber new coun-
try; the Princess de Conti, legitimated daughter of
Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de La Vallière, born
in 1666, married in 1681 to Prince Armand de
Conti, nephew of the great Cond6, a young woman
of exceptional grace and beauty; the two other legit-
imated daughters of the King, Mademoiselle de
Nantes born in 1673, and Mademoiselle de Blois

42 THE WOMEN OF VER8AI.LLE,.ç

in 1677, who were to marry, some years luter, one
the Duke of Bourbon, and the other the Duke of
Chartres (the future regent); Madame de Monte-
span, their mother, then forty-one years old, already
at the end of her left-handed reign, but still liv-
ing af court in the double capacity of lady of the
Queen's palace and the mother of legitimated chil-
dren, but no longer bearing any sway over either the
heurt or the senses of Louis XIV.;and finally,
Madame de Maintenon, already very influential
under a modèst êxterio---, still beautiful la spire of
her forty-seven years, on equally good terms with
both King aad Queen, and rewarded, since 1680,
for the cures she had bestowed, as governess, on the
children of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan,
by a place expressly created for her which did not
bind her to any assiduous service while it gave her
an honorable position at court: that of second lady-
in-waiting to the Dauphiness.
The parts played by the women of Versailles can-
hot be understood without studying beforehand the
character of the sovereign who was the animating
spirit of this palace and who strongly impressed him-
self hot merely on his own realm but on all Europe.
Never has any monarch exercised such a prestige
over his court; ail that shone around him was but
the pale reflection of this dazzling luminary. If
was from the Sun-King that each woman borrowed
lustre, and he must be spoken of before theii figures
are traced.

LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COURT I.N 1682 43

Whatever one may say, the life of Louis XIV.
gains on close examination. Defects and qualities
were alike great in this accomplished type of abso-
lute monarchy, of royalty by right divine. Louis
XIV. was hot merely maestic, he was amiable.
Those who surrounded him, the members of his
family, his ministers, his domestics, loved him.
This sovereign, intimidating to such a point that,
according to Saint-Simon, it was necessary to begin
by accustoming one's self to see him if, in speaking
with him, one did hot wish to run the risk of com-
ing fo a standstill, was nevertheless full of benevo-
lence and affability. "lqever was a man so naturally
polite, nor with so well-regulated a politeness, nor
one who better discriminated age, rank, and merit.
• . . lever did if happen to him to say a disobliging
thing to any one."  The Princess Palatine, usually
so caustic and severe, paid homage to his qualities
both as man and sovereign. "When the King
chose," she says in ber correspondence, "he was the
most agreeable and amiable of men. He joked in a
comical way and pleasantly .... Although he
loved flattery, he often mocked af it himself...
He knew perfectly well how to content people even
while refusing their requests; his manners were
most affable, and he spoke with such politeness that
it touched their hearts .... When he acted on his
own initiative, he was always good and generous."

1 Memoim of the Duke de Saint-Simon.

44 TttE WOM.ElV" OF VEBSAILLEq

To him pleasure was merely an accessory.
Throughout his entire reign he never ceased to
work eight hours every day. He wrote in his
Memoirs, intended for his son's instruction, that
for a king not to work was ingratitude and audacity
towards God, and injustice and tyranny towards
men. "These conditions of royalty," he added,
"which may sometimes appear to you hard and vexa-
tious in so high a place, you would find sweet and
easy were ita question of arriving thither ....
Nothing will be more fatiguing to you than great
idleness should you bave the misfortune of fallng
into it. Disgusted with affairs in the first place,
next with pleasures, you will at last be disgusted
with idleness itself." Work, that is to say duty,
was a source of incessant satisfaction for the great
King. "To have one's eyes open over all the earth,"
he wrote in his Memoirs, "to learn incessantly the
news of all the provinces and all the nations, the
secrets of all courts, the dispositions and the weak
points of all princes and all foreign ministers, tobe
informed about an infinity of things of which we
are supposed tobe ignorant, to see all around us
what people are endeavoring to their utmost to con-
ceal, to discover the most remote views of our own
courtiers,- I know not what other pleasure would
hot be abandoned for this one, even if solely moved
by curiosity."
Louis XIV. was a supreme artist who played his
part of king with facility and conviction. He ws

LOUIS .XIV'. AND HIS COURT IN 1682 45

also a poet in action whose existence, formed to strike
the imagination of his subjects, unrolled itself in an
uninterrupted series of grand and marvellous deeds;
a sovereign enamoured of glory and the ideal, "who
took a delighted admiration in great battles, in acts
of heroism and courage, in warlike preparations, in
the skilfully combined operations of a siege, in the
terrible affrays of battle, and, in the depths of forests,
in the noisy tumult of great hunting exploits." 1
On his deathbed, Louis XIV. uccused himself of
having been too fond of war. He might also bave
accused himself of having been too fond of women.
Yet he had certain illusions respecting them, und
sincerely believefl that thêy ha n-èvve¥--ùlê--hïm.
Heboasts as much- wrongly as we believe- in the
Memoirs he addressed to the Dauphin. "In aban-
doning our hearts," he wro_te, ":we must remain
absolute masters of out minds; we must make a dis-
tinction between the tenderness of a lover and the
resolutions of  sovereign, so that the beauty w__ho
makes our pleasures shall hot be free to speak to us
concerning out affairs .... You know wht I have
said to you many rimes about the influence of favor-
ites; tht of a mistress is far more dangerous . . .
As the prince ought always to be a perfect model of
virtue, it would be well for him to avoid the frail-
ries common to the test of mnkind, the more so
because he is sure that they cannot remain hidden."

1 Walckenar, Mémoires sur Madame de çévigné, t. V.

46 TttE WOME2g OF VERSAI.L.LEq

Louis XIV. did not always succeed in putting
these beautiful and prudent maxims into practice;
but, culpable as they were, his amours at all rimes
preserved a certain poetic quality. In the midst of
his splendors, the great King thought the joy of lov-
ing and of being loved vas the supreme happiness.
Far from wishing to say: Veni, vidi, vici, he courted
his mistresses patiently. He comprehended their
scruples, he esteemed their resisance, he honored
their repentance. Impassioned for love more than
for pleasure, he remained sentimental in his most
evanescent attachlnents. As has been remarked by
the Princess Palatine, if women wished to please
hiln, if was absolutely necessary for them if not to
love him, at least to pretend to do so. The first
really profound impression which was ruade on him
/-by Madame de Maintenon was caused by an evidence
of her sensibility. Seeing that ber grief at the death
of Mademoiselle de Montespan's oldest child had
ruade her lose flesh: "She knows how to love,"
said he. "It would be a pleasure to be loved by
ber."
This sovereign, so often accused of cruel egotism,
often showed exquisite delicacy of heart. Madame
de La Fayette, so good a judge in matters of senti-
ment, says as much in her Memoirs: "The King,
who is good-hearted, bas an extraordinary tender-
ness, especially for women." He desired to be loved
by them as much as to possess them. "For him, no
commerce with them could be lasting which did no

LOUIS XIV, AND HIS COURT IN 1682 47

include that of mind and soul. ''1 With his in-
contestable beauty of face and figure, his majestic
sweetness, his penetrating, sympathetic voice, his
chivalrous courtesy, his exquisite politeness toward
women of every tank, and the supreme elegance of
manners and language which distinguished him
among all others as the "King-bee," he would bave
had, even as a private person, the ability to "create
the greatest disorders of love." 2
He often discovered that all the fascinations of
riches, the pomp of thrones, the intoxications of
pride and power were hot worth a kiss, a stalle, and
amidst the magnificence of his Asiatic court he fre-
quently told himself, like a poet of our own day:-
"Être admiré n'est rien, l'affaire est d'être aimé." s
Is hot the perfume of the violet more charming
than that of incense, and was hot a tender word from
La Vallière sweeter to his ear and heart than the
overstrained compliments of his most skilful cour-
tiers? But the man whom one would love now
would no longer be Louis, it would be the King.
By an admirable law of Providence, nothing that is
really beautiful can be purchased: neither youth,
health, nor gaiety, neither consciousness, beauty,
talent nor glory, above all hOt love. Voluptuous
pleasure may be bought, and always costs too much,

1 Walckenaër, Mémoires sur Madame de Sévigné, t. V.
2 Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon.
s To be admired is nothing, the thing is to be loved.

48 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLE8

for voluptuousness is a very petty thing. As to
love, ai1 the knowledge and ai1 the treasures of love
cannot acquire it. Louis XIV. is absolute toaster.
Doubtless, if the fancy seized him, almist any
wiman wiuld still thriw herself at his head. But
ciuld he find anither La Vallière among all those
beauties ?
1682 is the beginning of his repentance, the year
when the King returns to virtue, when he meditates
seriiusly in the advantages of irdei and duty even
from the merely human point of view. His last
sensual passion had been for Mademoiselle de Fon-
ranges, who died the previous year. With ber was
extinguished the great flame of the King's amours.
His affection for Madame de Maintenon will be far
more intellectual than voluptuous. In that com-
merce there will be more room for the mind than for
the body, and the loyer will disappear almost entirely
to give place to the devotee. The tragic destiny of
Mademoiselle de Fontanges, the rapid honors, atoned
for so quickly and so painfully, the tabouret as
duchess, the carriages with six horses, the luxury,
jewels, splendors, and then the thunderbolt, the
terrible death after an unfortunate lying-in, the sus-
picion of poison, the remark of the Abbess de Chelles,
the favorite's sistei, in ieceiving her icy heart: "This
heait belinged ti Gid at first; the wirld had gained
it. God bas at last resumed what was His, but it
was hot yielded to Him without pain "; all this had
1)rofoundly impressed the mind of Louis XIV.

ZOUIS XIV. AYD HIS COURT IY 1682 49

Since then the words of great preachers had sounded
more forcibly than usual in his ears, and the voice
of his conscience spoke more loudly than that of his
courtiers.
From the depths of the cloister where she had been
enclosed eight years already, the retreat and the
silence of another woman inspired him with pious
reflections and salutary thoughts. The Duchess de
La Vallière, now become Sister Louise of Mercy,
had said that if the King came to her convent, she
would hide herself so effectually that he could hot
find ber. 1 But Louis XIV., penetrated with admi-
ration for the repentance of the sinner whose fault
he had occasioned, no longer desired to trouble the
calm of the asylum where she had sought refuge from
both herself and him. When she lost her brother in
1676, he had sent her word that if he were a good
enough man to see a Carmelite so pious as she, he
would go in person to tell ber how he regretted the
loss she had sustained. Louis XIV. has often been
accused of having completely forgotten the woman
he had so much loved. It is an unjust reproach, if
one may credit M. Walckenaër. 
According to this judicious critic, La Vallière was
never more present to the King's thoughts than after
she had abandoned his court, lever had she ap-
peared so adorable to him as when the sight of ber

1 Memoirs of the Princess Palatine.
 Walckenaër, 2llémoires sur ladame de Sévigné t. V.

0 THF VOMEN OF VFRSAILLI8

had been forbidden him. He joyfully granted all
she asked, hot for herself, but for her relatives, and
was glad to learn that the Queen and all the court
gave the pious Carmelite marks of their interest and
veneration. It was thus that at the foot of the
altar, Sister Louise of Mercy asked from God the
conversion of Louis XIV. and obtained it.
This sovereign, however calumniated by certain
historians of our day, was never a vulgar debauchee.
When it is remembered that at the age of forty-four,
being still in the full vigor of moral and physical
strength, he put an end to all scandals and thence-
forth lived an irreproachable private lire until his
death, in spite of the seductions surrounding him
on every side, it is impossible hot to render homage
to such a triumph of religious sentiment.
There was nothing in that consciousness of royal
dignity with which he bas been wrongfully re-
proached, as if it were a culpable pride, which was
incompatible with reverence for the Divinity. Be-
fore all things, Louis XIV. was a very spiritual
man. Believing in the altar and the throne, he had
faith in God first and then in himself, the anointed
of the Lord. Heaven was his ideal, and under
heaven, royalty; the royalty, which represented the
right of force and the force of right, the majestic,
tutelary royalty, which, like the sun, shed the splen-
dor and beneficence of its beams on poor and rich, on
small and great. Louis XIV. had a very just opin-
ion of himself. So great as he esteemed himself in

LOUIS .,IV. AND HI8 COURT I1 1682

the sight of men, so little did he think himself in
the sight of God. Better than any other could he
apply to himself Corneille's line:--

"Pour être plus qu'un roi, te crois-tu quelque chose ?" z

The sovereign who would bave defied all other
monarchs taken together, kneeled humbly before an
obscure priest. The worthy inheritor of Charle-
magne asked pardon for his sins from the son of a
peasant. It is this mixture of Christian humility
with royal pride which gives an aspect so imposing
to the character of Louis XIV. The religious sen-
timents taught him from his cradle by his mother
constantly recurred to his mind, even in his most
lamentable errors. When he was a child this impas-
sioned mother, kneeling before him, cried with trans-
port: "I would respect him as much as I love him."
But this exclamation was not an idle flattery. It
might be called an act of faith in the principle of
royalty.
The first impressions of the child were but
strengthened in the man. There was always in him
somewhat of both the sovereign and the pontiff.
He reigned with the same solemn gravity with
which sincerely convinced priests officiate. Soul of
the State, source of all grace, all justice, and all
glory, he considered himself the lieutenant of God

z Dost think thou art somewhat because thou art more than a
king

52 THE WOMEN OF VERAILLE8

upon earth, and it ws in that capacity that he had
a veneration for himself which the great preachers
incessantly confirmed. Bossuet's ideas of govern-
ment are simply a commentary on that political faith,
intimately associated with religious fith, of which
it is the orollary. To the great bishop as to the
great king, royalty is not a trade, but a priesthood,
and a sovereign who should not have the sentiment
of monarchical dignity would be as blameworthy a
a priest who should not respect the cult of which
he is the minister. It was to this theory, the very
essence of royal power, that Louis XIV. owed that
authoritative physical and moral attitude which
Sint-Simon styles "the constant dignity and con-
tinual law of his exterior."
The ascendency which he thought it not simply
his right but his duty to exercise over all his sub-
jects, be they what they might, made itself especially
felt by those who were near him. The government
of his court, his family, his gynoeceum, ws subject
to the same rules and doctrines as the affairs of State.
In him the paternal and the royal authority were
combined. Nothing escaped his control. His
wishes were irrevocable decrees, and his son, the
Duphin, behaved toward him like the most submis-
sive and respectful of all his courtiers. Revolution-
ary times may criticise such a system, but it is
admirable none the less. The principle of author-
ity, imposed on Nature herself as the general law of
creation, is the basis of all organized society.

£0UI8 XIi. AD HIS COURT I 1682 53

It is the glory of Louis XIV. to have been the
convinced representative, the living symbol of this
principle; to bave comprehended that where there
is no religious there is no politic.l discipline, and
that where there is no political there is no militry
discipline. The same theories ure upplicable to
churches, places, uad camps. Indispensable
thority is still more precious thon necessry liberties,
and in matters of government s in those of rt,
beuty is impossible without unity. The entire pro-
gramme of Louis XIV. was u constant aspiration
toward the unity which is hrmony. That is why
Napoleon, in excusing the defects of a sovereign
whose glory he was so well dapted to appreciate,
aid with admiration: "Are there not spots on the
sun? Louis XIV. was a gret king. It was he
who raised France to the first raak mong nations.
What king of France since Charlemagne cn be
ompared to Louis XIV. under all his aspects ?"

III

QUEEN IL&RIE THÉRÈSE

O find among types disturbed by pride, ambi-
tion, and the love of pleasure, a face of supreme
sweetness, a truly Christian character, a pure, can-
did, angelic soul, is a veritable satisfaction, I might
almost say a repose to the observer. One looks with
composure at simplicity beneath the diadem; humil-
ity on the throne; the qualities and virtues of a
nun in the heart of a queen; a short but well-
filled lire; a rôle seemingly eclipsed, but in reality
more serious and above all more noble and respect-
able than that of many celebrated women; at great
moral sufferings Christianly and courageously sup-
ported; in a word, at an irreproachable type of piety
and goodness, of conjugal tenderness and maternal
love. Such was Marie ThCrèse of Austria, the pious
companion of Louis XIV.
The French monarchy has had the privilege of
being sanctified by a certain number of queens whose
virtues might be called a compensation for court
scandais, and who bave contributed more than any
others to preserve the moral authority of the throne.

QUEEN _A_E TH_ÈE 55

Just as under the reigns of the later Valois Claude
of France, Elisabeth of Austria, and Louise de Vaudé-
mont redeemed the vices of Francis I., Charles IX.,
and Henry III. by their purity of heart, so Marie
Th6rèse may be said to bave recompensed morality
for the injuries inflicted on it by Louis XIV.
History should not forget this woman in whose veins
flowed the blood of Charles V. and that of Henry
IV. ; this sovereign who wore ber royal mantle
with dignity even while comparing it to a winding-
sheet; this model wife who loved ber husband with
all the strength of ber soul and never approached him
but with a mingled respect, fear, and tenderness;
this devoted mother who ruade it ber care to move
the heart of the young Prince whose mind was com-
mitted to the charge of Bossuet; this holy woman
who bas proved that a palace may become a sanctu-
ary, and that a Christian heart may beat under vel-
ver and ermine as well as under a robe of frieze.
Marie Th6rèse, born like Louis XIV. in 1638, was
but a few days younger thun he. Her father was
Philip IV., King of Spain, and ber mother Isabella
of France, daughter of Henry IV. and Maria de'
Medici. Hence she was cousin-german to Louis
XIV. The Christian sentiments of this princess
who reckoned Saint Elisabeth of Hungary and Saint
Elisabeth of Portugal among ber ancestors, did not
prevent ber from being conscious of the glosr of ber
family. A nun who was aiding ber to make her
examinution of conscience for u general confession,

6 THE WOME-N OF rFRSAILLE8

asked her one day, if before her marriage, she had
never sought to please or desired to be loved.
"1o," replied the Queen. "Could I bave loved
any one in Spain? There were no kings at my
father's court."
Marie Thrèse was hot remarkable from the phys-
ical point of view. Her Germanic rather than
Spanish countenance, ber dull white complexion,
ber very blond hair, ber large pale blue eyes, her
red and hanging lips, ber heavy features, ber small
figure, rendered her neither beautiful nor ugly.
Still, at the time of ber marriage she had not lacked
overstrained compliments and enthusiastic descrip-
tions. All Parnassus had set to work. A multi-
tude of French and Latin verses, in the following
strain had been comlosed:--
"Thérèse seule a 10u vaincre par ses regards
Ce superbe vainqueur, qui triomphe de Mars. » 1
"Victorem Martîs larozda, spolii isque sulaer5um
Vincere quve posset» sola Theresa fui. »
But this Queen whose hand had been desired by so
many princes, and whose marriage had so much
political importance, ruade a silence all round ber as
soon as she was installed in the Louvre and at
Saint-Germain. The timidity of ber character, ber
instinctive horror of the slanders and calumnies so

1 Theresa only has been able to vanquish by her glances
This SUlerb victor who triumlhs over Mars.

QUEE MARIE THIRÈsE 5ï

frequent in courts, ber remoteness from all intrigues,
her passionate admiration for the King whom she
believed far too superior to herself for ber to dare
offer him any political counsel, all aided to keep
her ignorant of government secrets, levertheless,
when Louis XIV. ruade foreign wars, he decorated
her with the title of regent. But in spite of these
more nominal than real functions, Marie Thérèse
busied herself very little with the affairs of State,
and the ministers continued in fact, if not in law, to
hold only from the sovereign. On formal occasions
Louis XIV. addressed his bulletins of victory to the
Queen. It was she who received official notification
of the crossing of the Rhine. When ber husband
was making a campaign, people said: "The King is
fighting, and the Queen praying."
Marie Thérèse had hot a superior intelligence, but
she united a great sentiment of dignity to much tact
and good sense. To Bossuet, who was charged
with the education of the Dauphin, she said: "Do
not permit anything, sir, in the conduct of my son
which may wound the sanctity of the religion he
professes and the majesty of the throne to which he
is destined." Her convictions as to the origin and
character of the royal power were absolutely liko
those of ber husband. She testified a boundless
admiration for him, and hot one of the women who
were enamoured of him loved him more strongly and
more constantly. At the beginning of ber marriage,
Louis XIV. had treated ber hot only with great

8 THE WOME1V OF IERSAILLES

respect, but with real tenderness. When she brought
the Dauphin into the world, the King was shedding
tears of anguish so long as the pains of her delivery
lasted, and at rive o'clock in the morning he went to
confession and communion.  In eleven years Marie
Thérèse had three sons and three daughters and lost
them all very young with the exception of the
Dauphin. She endured these cruel deaths with
admirable resignation but with a lacerated heart.
Her husband's infidelities, concealed a first, pub-
lic later on, caused ber nothing less than torture.
Assuredly it was a sad spectacle to see the King's
favorites forming part of the Queen's household and
apparently waiting on a woman of whom, under the
externals of respect, they were in reality the rivals
and persecutors. Mademoiselle de La Vallière,
maid of honor to Marie Thérèse, ruade her surfer all
the torments of jealousy and outraged conjugal love.
More than once the unhappy Queen was heard to
exclaim with bitterness: "That girl will be the
death of me." Mademoiselle de La Vallière rode in
the royal carriage with Madame de Montespan and
appeared thus at the frontiers, the camps, and the
armies.
"The people," says Sain-Simon, "hastened from
all parts fo see the three queens, and asked each
other in all simplicity if they had seen them."
Thirty-six years of the most austere penitence in

1 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.

QUEEN MARIE THtRÈs 59

the strictest conventual enclosure and the most se-
vere mortifications did hot seem to the Duchess de
La Vallière, now become Sister Louise of Mercy, a
sufficient expiation for the griefs she had occasioned
the saintly Queen. Between the repentant favorite
and the forgiving wife there were established, in the
holy silence of the cloister, friendly relations which
form one of the most touching souvenirs of history.
A member of the Paris clergy, M. l'Abbd Duclos,
has devoted a long and learned work to the compara-
tive study of Marie Thdrèse and Mademoiselle de
La Vallière. It is in reality an edifying subject,
and I do not wonder that it thrust itself upon the
pious meditations of a priest, lowhere was Marie
Thdrèse more loved and venerated than in that
Carmelite convent in the rue Saint-Jacques where
she came to visit the woman who had exchanged the
rle of a king's mistress for that of a servant of
God.
Some tlme before ber own scandalous favor began,
Madame de Montespan had said: "God preserve me
from being the King's mistress! But if I were so,
I should be very much ashamed before the Queen."
The woman who used this language was precisely
she who was to play ber part as favorite with the
utmost pomp and pride. And yet, at the bottom of
ber soul the triumphant beauty, the superb sultana,
so infatuated with her charms and her wit, ber
luxury and splendor, her elevation and ber power,
felt herself belittled in presence of this good and

60 THE WOMEN OF VER8AILLE8

pious Queen, the mere sight of whom was a mute
reproach. For awhile she succeeded in deceiving
her and in passing for an exemplary woman. But
the Queen, who, though she did hot readily believe
in evil, was hot without perspicacity, w quickly
disabused. One day she said: "I know more about
it than they think, and I ara nobody's dupe, what-
ever they may fancy."
Louis XIV., who felt himself guilty toward this
Queen so worthy of affection and respect, tried to
make amends by the deference he displayed for her.
He treated ber with gentleness and courtesy both
in public and private, and through attachment and
conscience as an honest man as well as through
interest in his dynasty, he never entirely neglected
her. When he came bck to ber, says the Princess
Palatine, "she became so gay that people remarked it
every time .... Then she laughed, and twinkled,
and rubbed ber little hands .... She had such an
affection for the King that she tried to read in his
eyes whatever would give him pleasure; providing
he looked kindly at ber she was happy all day." 1
She neither acted, thought, nor lived except in him.
The fear of displeasing him turned ber cold with
fright. "That poor princess," says Madame de
Caylus in ber oeouvenirs, "had such a dread of the
King and such great natural timidity that she neither
dared speak to him nor run the risk of a tëte-b,-tête

 Letters of the Prlncea Palatine.

with him. I have heard Madame de Maintenon say
that the King having sent for the Queen one day,
she asked ber to go with her, so that she might hot
appear alone in his presence; but that she only con-
ducted ber to the door of the room and there took the
liberty of pushing ber so as to male ber enter, and
that she observed such a great trembling in ber whole
person that her very hands shook with fright."
How, with a wife so worthy of respect, so irre-
proachable as Marie Thérèse, could a sovereign who,
like Louis XIV., had the notion of justice and in-
justice, of respect for himself and his people, have
so far forgotten himself as to recognize, publicly and
solemnly, the children of a double adultery? This
is a real problem. The fault, we are bound to say,
was less due to the King's pride than to the idolatry
of the nation. The chief offenders were those ser-
vile courtiers who through interest and cupidity far
more than through admiration deified the monarch
in open Christendom, and, if they had received per-
mission, would bave raised altars as well as tri-
umphal arches to him. Never would Louis XIV.
bave permitted these legitimations if public opinion
had been more moral. One is obliged to recognize
that in this affair neither the clergy, the nobility, nor
the people at large possessed the necessary energy
and dignity. Great scandals are accomplished only
by degrees. Sovereigns do not yield to them unless
they are supported by the base sentiments of those
around them. Louis XIV. had at first no thought

62 THE WOM.E.N OF VER8AI.L.LES

of legitimating his bastards, still less of putting
them in the lire of succession to the crown. He
was led to it by a combination of different circum-
stances: in the first place, I confess, by that prido
which ruade him rate himself, like another Jove,
above the laws of his Olympus ; then by the impulse,
the vertigo of those audacious sins, thoso lcls
d'abondance which, us Bossuer says, «wish fo enjoy
all the light of day and all the knowledge of heaven."
He had paternal affection also, and greater, perhaps,
than all these, a desire to rehabilitate and console
the women of whose faults he had been the cause.
But in spite of everything, the legitimations are
monstrous actions, unjustifiable attacks upon moral-
ity, society, and religion, and oR this head Saint-
Simon's wrath is only too just. But does not the
responsibility fall, in part at least, on those detest-
able flatterers of whom Racine speaks who are the
panders and slaves of royal vices? Does hot one
recall these curious remarks of the austere Duke de
Saint-Simon concerning his own father: "Louis
XIII. was really enamoured of Mademoiselle de
Hautefort. . . My father was young and gallant,
and he could not understand a king so amorous and
so little able to conceal it, who did hot go any
farther. He thought it was timidity, and on this
principle, when the King was once speaking to him
passionately about this girl, my father proposed fo
him to become his ambassador and bring the affair to
u speedy conclusion."

QUEEN MARIE THIRÈSE 63

Could we believe it ? The man who urged Louis
XIV. most strongly to make scandalously fine alli-
ances for his bastards was the great Condé. The
marriage of his nephew, Prince de Conti, to a daugh-
ter of Mademoiselle de La Vallière, and that of his
grandson to a daughter of Madame de Montespan,
ove,rwhelmed him with joy.
"The King," says Madame de Caylus, "would
never bave thought of raising his bastards so high
but for the anxiety shown by the two Princes of
Condé to lintr themselves with him by this sort of
marriages. Condé hoped to efface in this way the.
impression the past might have left on the King's
mind; his son displayed the zeal and baseness of a
courtier who wanted to make his fortune." It must
be admitted that the attitude of such a man as the
victor of Rocroy is, not indeed an excuse, but an
attenuating circumstance for Louis XIV. When
flatterers arrive ata certain limit one cannot demand
wisdom of kings. How can a prince believe him-
self still a man when idolatrous subjects treat him as
a demigod ? We find but one thing surprising, and
that is that, in spire of his flatterers, Louis XIV.
still retained so mu¢h good sense as to desire and
will his own conversion.
"It is very true," says the Princess Palatine,
"that our King bas given scandal by his mistresses,
but he has had a great repentance for it." He had
never yielded to voluptuousness without remorse,
and even at the rime of his most violent passions, a

64 THE WOME.N OF V'ERSAILLES

secret struggle, a relentless battle between pleasure
and duty went on within him. In the very height
of his most stormy temptations he had returns to
virtue. Religious faith never abandoned him. He
never but once failed tobe present at Mass, and that
in war-time when to do otherwise was impossible.
From the 1st of January, 1674, he had brought
about a considerable modification in the Queen's
household. Suppressing the maids of honor, several
of whom had doubtful reputations, he had set about
replacing them by women married to great person-
ages and specially renowned for conjugal fidelity.
He was freeing himself by degrees from the tyranny
of his senses, and his passion for Mdame de Monte-
span was on the decline when, in 1680,  new idol,
Mademoiselle de Fontanges, suddenly kindled  new
flme. He took to dncing gin with the rdor of
 very young mn. Like Mdemoiselle de L VI-
lière, the fvorite received the title of duchess.
Her sister ws appointed Abbess of Chelles, just s
Mdme de Montespn's sister had been appointed
Abbess of Fontevrault.
In 1680, on New Yer's Day, she was present t
the King's Mass "extraordinarily decked with jewels
on  robe of the saine stuff as Her Majesty's, nd
both of them with blue ribbons. '' La Fontaine
ddressed her the most ludatory of epistles. She
seemed t the height of fvor when, carried off by 

1 Bussy Rabutin's Letters to La Rivière, January 15 1680.

sudden death, after a pregnancy, June 28, 1681,
she once more proved that, as Bossuet bas said,
health is but a naine, life but a dream, and the
graces and lleasures only a dangerous amusement.
In this terrible death Louis XIV. beheld a lesson,
a warning from on high, and thenceforth he returned
in good earnest to the principles of virtue and duty.
Madame de Maintenon, who boasted of loving him
hot for himself, but for God, used all her influence
to keep him faithful to the Queen. When he finally
established his residence at Versailles, in 1682, that
princess was satisfied with the affection he evinced
for ber. Madame de Caylus affirms in her Souvenir8
that he lavished attentions on ber to which she was
unaccustomed. He saw her more frequently and
tried to amuse and divert ber. Her son the Dau-
phin, and ber daughter-in-law, the Bavarian Dau-
phiness, also showed ber the greatest deference.
Her apartments at Versailles, composed of rive
large rooms, ending at the marble staircase at one
extremity and at the Gallery of Mirrors at the other,
were furnished magnificently. The Queen occupied
the chamber already mentioned in the introduction
to this study, and from which may be seen the
Orangery, the Swiss lake, and the hills of Satory.
She was fond of leaving this splendid abode in order
to go and pray in convents or visit hospitals. She
might be seen waiting on the sick with her own
royal hands, carrying them their nourishment like
a simple infirmarian, and when the doctors remarked

66 THE WOME_V OF IrERSAILLE,9

on this in the interests of her own health, she replied
that she could not employ it better than in serving
Jesus Christ in the persons of the poor.
Notwithstaading the return of affection manifested
for her by the King, she continued to lire humbly
and modestly, busying herself with her domestic
affairs, and not with those of State. The Gazette
officielle never mentions this good Queen except to
announce that she had fulfilled her religious duties
in her parish church or had gone to spend the day
with the Carmelites of the rue Bouloi.
Marie Thgrèse, happy and consoled, rejoiced in
the kindness of the King and the birth of her grand-
son, the Duke of Burgundy. Far from being jealous
of the increasing influence of Madame de Maintenon,
she congratulated herself on it as one cause of the
pious sentiments of Louis XIV., and never could if
have occurred to her mind that Scarron's widow, the
former governess of the bstards, would soon be the
King's wife, and Queen of France in all but naine.

IV

]g_ADAIIE DE IIONTESPAN IN 1682

OUIS XIV. had repented sincerely. After
the death of Mademoiselle de Fontanges he
had definitely forsaken mistresses, and was giving
edification instead of scandal. Madame de Monte-
span, who was treated with consideration on account
of ber birth and tank, and as being the mother of
legitimated children, still acted as superintendent of
the Queen's household. But Louis XIV. never saw
ber except in public, and she no longer counted for
anything as favorite or mistress. In spite of ber
desperate efforts to retain her empire she was forced
to let the left-hand sceptre slip from her grasp, and
after making a hard battle against rate, after having
employed ber last batteries, she was obliged to own
herself irremediably defeated. In 1682 she had
given up the struggle, and religion was offering
ber a balm for the wounds inflicted by spite and
pride.
She was then forty years old and still preserved
the lustre of her beauty. She did not owe ber
defeat to the diminution of ber charms, but rather
67

68 TttE WOMEN OF VERSAILLE8

to the progress of religious sentiments in the soul of
Louis XIV.
Before examining what the haughty favorite be-
came, let us see what she had been in the days of
her shameful victories.
A haughty and opulent beauty, a forest of fair
hair, flashing blue eyes, a complexion of splendid car-
nation and dazzling whiteness, one of those alluring
and radiant countenances which shed b»ightness
around them wherever they appear, an incisive,
caustic wit, sparkling with life and animation, an
inextinguishable thirst for riches and pleasure,
luxury and domination, the manners of a goddess
audaciously usurping the place of Juno on Olym-
pus, passion without love, pride without dignity,
splendor without poetry: that was Madame de
Montespan.
Born in 1641, at the château of Tonnay-Charente,
of the Duke de Mortemart and Diana de Grand-
seigne, she was maid of honor to the Queen in 1660
and in 1663 was married to the Marquis de Monte-
span. She had been brought up very religiously and
went to communion every week. Nothing, at this
period, could have ruade her foresee the sorry rôle to
which ambition and vanity, fr more than an impulse
of the heart, were to condemn her youth. Moreover,
we must do ber the justice of admitting that she did
hot succumb without a struggle. If is said that she
entreated her imprudent husband to take ber away
from the perils of the court while there was still

• fADAME DE MOITESPA I 1682 69

rime. It cost M. de Montespan something not to
bave been more jealous. Madame de Caylus remarks
concerning this that fur from having been born
depraved, the future favorite had a character natu-
rally disinclined to gallantry and tending towards
virtue. "She was flattered at being mistress, not
solely for her own pleasure, but on account of the
passion of the King. She believed she could make
him always desire what she had resolved never to
grant him. She was in despair at ber first preg-
nancy, consoled herself for the second one, and in
all the others carried impudence as far as it could
go." 1
Her great favor lasted about thirteen years. This
was the epoch of the intoxication of courtiers and
the prostration of peoples. The court was like a
sort of Christian and monarchical Olympus of which
King Louis XIV. was the Jove. "Inferior gods and
goddesses moved beneath him. Their virtues were
extolled and their very vices paraded with an audac-
ity of superiority which seemed to establish between
the people and the throne the difference between the
morality of gods and that of men. Louis XIV. had
ruade himself accepted as an exception in all things,
even in humanity." « The most admirable geniuses
had become the accomplices of this new idolatry.
Did not Molière say in his Amphitryon : w

1 ouvenirs of Madame de Caylus.
 Lamartine, Étude sur tZénelon.

0 THE IFOMEN OF VERSAILLES

"Un partage avec Jupiter
lq'a rien du tout qui déshonore,
Et sans doute il ne peut être que glorieux
De se voir le rival du souverain des Dieux."

M. de Montespan was hOt of this opinion, but ho
vas considered a ridiculous person, a fool.
The good Lu Fontaine, offering to Madame de
Montespan the seventh book of his fables, fairly
outstripped the limits of flattery in his dedica-
tion: --

"Sous vos seuls auspices ces vers
Seront juges, malgré l'envie,
Dignes des yeux de l'univers.
Je ne merite pas une faveur si grande;
La Fable en son nom la demande;
Vous savez quel crédit ce mensonge a sur nous.
S'il procure à mes vers le bonheur de vous plaire,
Je croirai lui devoir un temple pour salaire :
Mais je ne veux bâtir des temples que pour vous."

1 A partnership with 5upiter
H.s nothing at all dishonoring in it,
And doubtless it cannot be other than glorious
To behold oneself the rival of the sovereign of the gods.
 Under your auspices alone these verses
Will be judged, in spite of envy,
As worthy of the eyes of the universe.
I do hot merit so great a fayot;
Fable demands it on her oa behalf ;
You know what credit fiction h.s with us.
If it shall procure for my verses the happiness of pleasing you,
I should feel that I owed it a temple as reward;
But I will build no temples save for you.

MADAME DE MONTESPAN I 7682 71

Adulution wus carried so far that the courtiers
were grateful to the favorite for having given seven
children 1 to the King, and ruade no adverse criticism
on their legitimation. The post of King's mistress
was considered as a public function, a great court
office, having its rights and duties, its ceremonial
and etiquette. Even Colbert, the inflexible minis-
ter, the marble man, vir marmoreus, the glacial per-
sonage whom Madame de Svign styled the 1Vorth,
was constantly occupied with the love affairs of Louis
XIV. and Madame de Montespan. It was to him
that the King wrote, June 15, 1678: "I hear that
Montespan allows himself to say indiscreet things;
he is a fool whom you will do me the kindness to
bave closely watched .... I know he threatens to
see his wife, and as he is capable of it, and the con-
sequences might be dreaded, I rely on you to keep
him quiet."

1 tIere is the list of the seven chfldren of Louis XIV. and
Madame de Montespan :--
1. A daughter, born in 1669, who died at the age of three
years;
2. The Duke du Maine, born in 1670, married in 1692 to Made-
moiselle de Bourbon-Charolais, died in 1736;
3. The Count de Vexin, born in 1672, died in 1683 ;
4. Mademoiselle de lantes, born in 1673, married to the Duke
de Bourbon in 1685, died in 1743 ;
5. Mademoiselle de Tours, born in 1674, died in 1681 ;
6. Mademoiselle de Blois, born in 1677, married in 1692 to the
Duke de Chartres (the future regent), died in 1749;
7. The Count de Toulouse, born in 1678, married in 1728 to
Mademoiselle de Noailles, died in 1737.

72 THE WOME1V OF VERSAILLE8

To ail appearance Madame de Montespan was
happy. Her beautiful face shone with the glow of
her apotheosis. She was the haughty sultana, the
idol, the conquering beauty. Madame de Sévigné,
the great admirer of success, cast ecstatic glances
toward the triumphant mistress. She had a naïve
enthusiasm for tht marvellous robe "of gold on
gold, re-embroidered in gold, and above that a
shaggy gold, restitched with u gold mixed with a
certain gold, which mkes the divinest stuff that ever
was imagined." She wrote to ber daughter: "Madame
de Montespan was covered with diamonds the other
day; no one could stand the lustre of such a divinity.
• . . 0 my daughter, what triumph at VersaillesI
what redoubled pride! what a solid establishment!
what pleasure, even by distractions and absence!"
And yet Madame de Montespan was troubled and
uneasy. The scndal of ber lire was disturbed by
occasional inclinations toward repentance. Already
there was going on in ber soul a latent, relentless
war between heaven and earth, between duty and
sensual pleasure. "The King," says Madame de
Caylus, "was religious at bottom, and showed it
even in his greatest disorders with women, for that
was the only weakness he ever had. The great
feasts caused him remorse, for he was equally
troubled at not performing his devotions and at
performing them badly. Madame de Montespan
had the same sentiments, and it was net solely fo
show ber conformity to the King that she displayed

MADAME DE MONTESPAN IN 1682

them. She had been perfectly well brought up.
She showed it, as the King did at all rimes, and I
remember to bave heard that she fasted so rigidly in
Lent as fo have ber bread weighed."
Saint-Simon makes the saine remark. He ays
that "great glutton and gourmand as she was,
nothing in the world could bave ruade ber fail
observe the regulations of the Church concerning
the fasts of Lent and the Ember Days, and she left
the King fo go and recite some prayers every day."
One day the Duchess d'Uzès expressed ber aston-
ishment at such religious scruples. "What! Ma-
dame," replied the favorite, "because I do one bad
thing must I do al1 the others ?"
lothing is more painful for the sou1 than these
half-pieties, these half-conversions, these bursts of
repentance which bring the fear of hell and take
away the hope of paradise. "Virtue," Massillon
has said, "is a hidden manna; fo taste all its sweet-
ness you must fathom if thoroughly; but the more
you advance, the more do consolations abound,
calme grow the passions, the straighter are the
paths, the more you applaud yourself on having
broken the chains which you did hot drag without
regret and secret sadness. Thus, so long as you
confine yourself fo mere attempts af virtue, you will
taste nothing but its repugnances and bitterness;
and as you bave hot the fidelity of the just, you
ought hot fo expect their consolations."
 Masillon, armon sur la

74 THE WrOMEN OF IrERSAILLES

Such was the state of Madame de Montespan's
heurt when in Holy Week of 1675 she wanted to
perform ber Easter duties publicly at Versailles.
The priest to whom she addressed herself, the Abb4
L4cuyer, flatly refused to give her absolution so long
as the scandal of adultery continued. Thereupon
the wrath of the irascible Duchess was kindled and
she carried her complaint to Louis XIV.
The King summoned the cur6 of the parish to
which the Abb6 L6cuyer was attached. The cur6
had the courage to sustain his vicar. Then Bossuer
was consulted. The worthy successor of the bishops
of the primitive Church did hot hesitate a single
moment. He replied that in such circumstances an
entire, absolute separation was an absolute condition
for being admitted to the sacraments, and he pro-
claimed "the imperious duty of denying absolution
to public sinners living in notorious habits of dis-
order and refusing to quit them." Louis XIV.
bowed respectfully to the decision of the man of
God. He finally resolved to break with Madame de
Montespan.
This most unexpected result-- for Louis XIV. was
then in the full vigor of manhood and us ardent as
ever in his passion for his mistress- was due to the
counsels of Bossuet and the preaching of Bourda-
loue.
The preachers had a real influence at court, and
exercised over both the sovereign and society af
large a moral ascendancy which bas been described

MADAMI DI MONT.SPAN IN 1682 75

with as much skill as exactness by a distinguished
ecclesiastic, M. the Abb6 Hurel. 1 Bourdaloue, the
admirable orator, so grand in his simplicity, so
venerable in his modesty, the puissant, irresistible
dialectician whose compact arguments made him
excel in giving pitched battles to the consciences of
his hearers, and of whom the great Cond6 said, as
he saw him ascending the pulpit: "Silence! there
is the enemy!" Bourdaloue was without contradic-
tion one of the most active agents in the conversion
of Louis XIV. He had preached at court the Ad-
vent of 1670 and the Lents of 1672, 1674, and 1675.
Bold as a tribune and courageous as an apostle,
he turned the iron in the wound. The pitiless
enemy of adultery, he exclaimed with holy candor:
"Have you not seen again that person, the reef on
which your firmness and your constancy have been
shattered? Have you not again sought the occa-
sions so dangerous for you? . . . Ah ! Christians,
how many conversions would not your single exam-
ple produce? What an attraction would it hot be
for certain sinners, discouraged and fallen into
despair, if they could say to themselves: 'There is
that man whom we have seen in the same debauch-
eries as ourselves, and behold him converted and
submissive to God.'" Then, addressing himself
more directly still to Louis XIV., the orator added

1 Les Orateurs sacrés à la cour de Louis XIV. par M. l'Abbé
Hurel. We recommend this curious and learned work to ail who
are interested in studying the great century.

76 THE IVOMEN OF VERSAILLE8

in the saine sermon: "Truth is what saves kings;
Your Majesty seeks for it, loves those who make it
known to him, can have nothing but contempt for
those who disguise it from him, and, far from resist-
ing it, will esteem it glollious to be vanquished by
it."
Bossuet's exhortations were hot less urgent. His
functions as preceptor to the Dauphin gave him fre-
quent access to the King, and he used them to plead
energetically the cause of duty and virtue. It was
he who, in his sermon on the feast of the Purifica-
tion, delivered at court, had said: "Let us fly dan-
gerous occasions and not presume upon out strength.
One cannot long resist his vigor when he bas to
employ it against himself." It was he who wrote
to M. de Bellefond: "P11ay to God for me; pray
Him either to deliver me from the greutest burden
that can be imposed on a man, or else to put o death
all that is man in me, so that He may act alone.
God be thanked, during the whole course of this
affair I bave hot yet thought that I ara in the
world; but that is not a11; one should be, like Saint
Ambrose, a real man of God, a man of the other lire,
in whom all things speak, whose every worcl is an
oricle of the Holy Spirit, whose whole conduct is
hevenly; pray, pray, I entreat you."
Louis XIV., reconciled with God and with him-
self, had received his Easter Communion on Holy
Saturduy (April, 1675). A few days later, on
quitting Versailles fo rejoin his army, he declared

MA.DAME .DE .MO.NTESPA_N IV 1682 7"[

to the Queen, to Bossuer, and to Père La Chaise,
that all was finally at an end between him and
Madame de Montespan. The favorite had sub-
mitted. She also had communicated and had taken
shelter at Paris in a modest and unknown house.
Bossuer went thither to give ber instructions and
confirm ber in the right path. "I find Madame de
Montespan sufficiently tranquil," he wrote to Louis
XIV. "She occupies herself greatly in good works.
I see her much affected by the verities I propose to
ber, and which are the same I uttered to Your
Majesty. To ber as to you I bave offered the words
by which God commands us to yield our whole hearts
to Him; they have caused ber to shed many tears.
May God establish these verities in the depths of
both your hearts, in order that so many tears, so
much violence, so many efforts as you have made to
subdue yourselves may not be in vain!"
The attitude of Bossuet throughout this affair bas
been criticised with culpable levity. Madame de
Sévigng, who does hot always weigh her expressions
and too frequently judges men and things with the
giddiness of a worldly woman, has spoken of a con-
formity between the counsels of the bishop and those
of Madame de Montespan's adherents, of a strong
accord between the interests of the policy of the
King's mistress and those of Christianity. 1 Cha-
teaubriand has been still more unjust in his Analyse

1 Letter to Madame de Grignan, July 13, 1675.

raisonnde de l'ttistoire de S'rance. "We ask our-
selves," he says, "how a prince could bave a recog-
nized mistress whom honor, genius, and virtue came
to worship; this idea made its entrance in the seven-
teenth century. Bossuer undertook to reconcile
Louis XIV. and Madame de Montesian."
iothing can be more inexact than this assertion,
to which M. Floquet and M. Pierre Clément bave
already donc justice.
io; Bossuer was not one « of these teachers who,
in their unfortunate and inhuman complaisance,
their deadly pity, lay cushions under the elbows
of sinners and seek a cloak for their passions. ''1
Was the man a pander who wrote to Louis XIV.
in July, 1675: "Sire, the feast of Pentecost is ap-
proaching, when Your Majesty bas resolved to com-
municate. Although I doubt not that you bave
thought seriously of what you bave promised to
God, as you bave requested me to remind you of it,
the rime bas corne when I feel myself still more
bound to do so. Reflect, Sire, that you cannot be
truly converted if you do not labor to remove from
your heart hot merely the sin but the occasion which
leads you to it. Truc conversion does not content
itself with destroying the fruits of death, as says the
Scripture, that is to say, the sins, but it goes even
to the foot, which will infallibly cause them to
sprout forth again if it be hOt eradicated."

a Bossuet, Oraison .funèbre de Cane¢,

.MADAME DE MO2VTEPA.5 1.5 1682 79

With what respectful firmness, what nobility of
thought and language, the great bishop addresses
himself to the great King! "I hope," he writes in
the same letter, "that the great matters which daily
occupy Your Majesty more and more, will greatly
aid in curing you. Nothing is talked of now but
the beauty of your troops and what they are capable
of executing under so great a leader. For my part,
Sire, I ara all the while secretly thinking of a far
more important war and a much more difficult vic-
tory which God proposes to you.
"Meditate, Sire, on these words of the Son of
God; they seem to have been uttered for great kings
and conquerors: What doth it profit a man, He says,
to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
And what gain can recompense him for so great a
loss? Of what use will it be to you, Sire, to be
redoubtable and victorious externally, if witbin you
are vanquished and a captive ? Pray God then that
He may set you free; I will so pray to Him with
all my heart. My anxieties for your salvation in-
crease from day to day, because I daily understand
better what your dangers are. May God bless Your
Majesty! May God grant you victory, and, by vic-
tory, peace within and without! The more sincerely
Your Majesty gives your heart to God, the more
you place your hope and confidence in Him, the
more also will you be protected by His powerful
hand."
This letter produced an impression on the soul of

80 THE WOMEN OF VEB8AILLE8

Louis XIV. He communicated on Whitsunday,
June 2, in the camp of Latines, two days before
Mademoiselle de La Vallière was professed as a
Carmelite nun. Madame de Montespan also ap-
proached the Holy Table. It was believed that a
serious conversion had been effected. The Marquise
had returned to her ch£teau of Clagny, near Ver-
sailles. The Queen, always good and generous,
forgave her from the bottom of ber heart and allowed
her to perform her functions as lady of the palace.
Well-informed people were not greatly touched
by the pious dispositions of the haughty Marquise
who, far from appearing ashamed of the scandais she
had given, lorded it over the magnificent construc-
tions of her Clagny palace like Dido in the midst of
rising Carthage. "You cannot imagine," wrote
Madame de Sévigné, June 12, 1675, "what triumph
she is in amongst her workmen, who number some
twelve hundred; the palace of Appolidon and the
gardens of Armida are a light description of it."
While the poor Queen, deceived once more, visited
Clagny and took Madame de Montespan sometimes
to the Trianon and sometimes to the Carmelite con-
vent, a secret correspondence had been renewed
between the King and his mistress. Louis XIV.,
still at the camp of Latines, wrote to Colbert on
June 5: "Continue to do what Madame de Monte-
span wishes. Send me word what orange-trees bave
been taken to Clagny." And on the 8th of the same
month: "The expense is excessive, and I see from

.MADAME DE MO1VTESPA1V I 1682 81

this that nothing is impossible to you when itis a
question of pleasing me. Madame de Montespan
sends me word that you have acquitted yourself
very well in what I commanded, and that you are
always asking if she wants anything; continue al-
ways to do so." The flame, far from being extinct,
was about to burn more ardentl:y than ever.
Intoxicated with his new triumphs and forgetful
of the sacred promises ruade at the hour of departure,
Louis XIV., leaving his army of Flanders, returned
to court after an absence of severul months (July,
1675). Bossuer, who in spite of all his efforts had
not been able to prevent Madame de Montespan's
return, went to meet the sovereign at Luzarches.
The mere sight of the austere prelate was a mute
reproach to the King. As soon as he perceived
Bossuet, whose face wore an expression of great
sadness, he exclaimed quickly: "Say nothing to me,
sir, say nothing to me; I have given my orders and
they will be executed."
The whole court was anxious to see what would
happen. It was agreed, says Madame de Caylus,
that the King should corne to Madame de Monte-
span's house, but, in order to give the scandal-
mongers no occasion for faultfinding, it was also
agreed that the gravest and most respectable ladies
of the court should be present at this interview.
"The King came therefore to Madame de Monte-
span's house, as had been decided; but he gradually
OE'ew ber into u window seat, where they whispered

 THE WOME_TV OF ERSAILLE8

for a long rime, wept, and said what is usually said
in such cases; afterwards they ruade a profound
reverence to these venerable matrons and passed into
another chamber, and from thence came Madame the
Duchess of Orleans and afterward M. the Count of
Toulou8e."
Madame de Caylus adds in ber qouvenirs, always
written with subtlety and malice: "Here I cannot
refuse to express a thought which occurs to my
mind. It appears to me that the traces of this com-
bat of love and jubilee may still be seen in the
character, the physiognomy, and the whole person of
Madame the Duchess of Orleans."
To judge from appearances, the favorite had re-
gained all ber empire. "Her beauty is extreme,"
wrote Madame de S6vign6. "Her attire is like her
beauty, and her beauty like ber attire .... 1 I bave
been told that the other day Quanto 2 was seen lean-
ing her head familiarly on her friend's shoulder; it
was thought this affectation was meant to convey:
' I am better off than ever.'"
Some days later Madame de S6vign6 declared that
the favorite's star was on the decline. "Quanto's
star is growing pale; there are tears, natural cha-
grin, affected gaiety, sulkiness. People look, they
observe, they think they see rays of light on coun-
tenances which, a month ago, they found unworthy

1 Letter of August 7, 1676.
 Quanto and Quantora are the sobriquets given by Madame de
Sfivigné to Madame de Montespan.

MADAME, DE MO.NTESPAN IN 1682 83

tobe compared with others." 1 "Everybody thinks
that the friend is no longer in love .... On the
other hand, the attitude of friendship is not definitely
taken; so much beauty still and so much pride do
not easily take a second place. Jealousies are very
keen; but did jealousies ever prevent anything?" 2
The witty Marquise concludes by this very just re-
flection: "If Quanto had really tied her bonnet-
strings at Easter the year she returned to Paris, she
would not be in ber present agitation; she was well-
inclined to take this step; but human weakness is
great, people like to husband the remains of beauty,
and this economy ruins more than it entiches." 3
Discontent with oneself; the lassitude of illicit
loves; the disquiet of a troubled soul which is still
seeking happiness in vice but commences to see that
it can only be found in virtue; the remorse which
will hot be stifled; the secret sadness that gnaws
the soul, -- Louis XIV., hesitating between good and
evil, had arrived at these premonitory symptoms of
repentance of which Saint Augustine's Confessions
give so striking a description. Meanwhile, unfaith-
ful to both his wife and his mistress, he was still
paying court to the Princess de Soubise, Mademoi-
selle de Fontanges, and other idols, worshipped on
one day only to be abandoned on the next. Ma-
dame de Sdvignd wrote, April 6, 1680: "Madame
de Montespan is enraged. She wept  good deal

1 Letter of September 11, 1676. u Letter of September 30.
8 Letter of October 16.

84 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

yesterday. You can judge of the martyrdom her
pride suffers, and it is still more outraged by the
high favor of Madame de Maintenon." And Bussy
Rabutin, April 30 of the saine year: "Madame de
Montespan is fallen. The King no longer looks at
her, and you may be sure the courtiers follow his
example."
Louis XIV. thought to console her for the triumph
of 5Ltdemoiselle de Fontanges by appointing her
superintendent of the household to the Queen, who,
"wishing to gratify her and treat her honorably,"
granted her a pension under this title (April, 1679).
But the repudiated favorite, the mistress once
"thundering and triumphant," was nevertheless in
despair. Her enemies, blinded by hatred, accused
her, in defiance of all truth, of having poisoned her
rival, the Duchess of Fontanges, and the correspond-
ence of the Princess Palatine shows the following
traces of this odious and unjust suspicion: "Ma-
dame de Montespan was an incarnate fiend, but the
Fontanges was good and simple. The latter is dead,
they say, because the former put poison in her milk.
I do not know whether this is true, but what I do
know well is that two of the Fontanges people died,
saying publicly that they had been poisoned."
Louis XIV., thenceforth satisfied as to the bitter-
ness, the satiety, and the anguish of guilty passions,
at last returned to God. The work of Bossuet had
been accomplished. Saint-Simon, who does full
justice to the conduct of the saintly prelate, sa's

MADAME DE MONTE8PA.N I.N 1682 85

concerning him: "He often spoke to the sovereign
with a freedom worthy of the first centuries and first
bishops of the Church; he interrupted the course of
the disorder many times; at last he ruade it end."
The conversion of Louis XIV. had this time a
definitive character; but this result must not be
attributed solely to religion; it was also due to the
influence of the woman of whom we are about to
speak: Madame de Maintenon.

IADA:M:E DE :MAINTENON IN 1682

"-7"HY are we so tender hearted for Mademoi-
¥ ¥ selle de La Vallire? I greatly fear it is
on account of ber sin, hot on account of ber repent-
ance. Why are we so hard towards Madame de
Maintenon? I greatly fear it is on account of ber
virtue." This remark of an eminent critic, M.
Hippolyte Rigault, is very just. It agrees with the
opinion of another hot less enlightened judge. « It
seems," says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, "as if the
world and posterity begrudged to Madame de Main-
tenon a triumph gained by reason on behalf of
honesty. Unable to prevent ber from succeeding by
reason, the world indemnified itself by giving ber a
reputation for frigidity and harshness very contrary
to ber character. Since reason must needs be trium-
phant, the world insisted that it should at least be
unamiable."
A fait and luminous figure bas been overshadowed.
We forger that the woman represented under a
gloomy, almost sinister aspect, was a charmer, an
enchantress whom Fdnelon characterized as "reason

MADAME DE MAINTENON IN 1682 87

speaking through the mouth of the Graces," whom
Racine had in mind when writing these verses of
Esther: --

"Je ne trouve qu'en vous je ne sais quelle grlce
Qui me charme toujours, et jamais ne me lasse."

Madame de Maintenon's adversaries carried the
day at first against her admirers. But our own
epoch, impassioned for historical verities, has revised
a false judgment.
Two able and convinced writers, the Duke de
Noailles and M. Th6ophile Lavallée, full of respect
for a memory unjustly accused, bave, as one may
say, succeeded in resuscitating the true Madame
de Maintenon. Baron de Walckenaër had already
called attention to the fact that this woman, appre-
ciated in such diverse fashions, is the one historical
personage concerning whom we possess the most
documents proceeding from ber mouth or written
by her pen. "Hence it is to be regretted," said he,
"that even the most judicious historians have pre-
ferred contemporary satires to the certain and au-
thentic testimony furnished by herself, and have
converted a simple and interesting history into a
vulgar and incomprehensible romance."
At present the truth bas corne to light. Madame
de Maintenon's defenders have left nothing remain.:

10nly in you I find a nameless grace
Which chrms me a!ways and which never tires.

88 THE IVOMEN OF VERSAILL.ES

ing of the invectives of Saint-Simon and the Princess
Palatine against a woman who deserves the esteem
of posterity whatever malevolence may say. Since
the publication of the Duke de Noailles's fine work
thcre bas been a sort of literary tourney on the sub-
ject of Madame de Maintenon, and the great critic
Sainte-Beuve has been umpire. "M. LavalI6e," he
says, "bas experienced what happens to alI fair
minds who approach this distinguished person and
take pains to know her in her ordinary life .... He
bas done justice to that mass of fantastic and odi-
ously vague imputations which bave long been in
circulation concerning the pretended historicaI rôle
of this celebrated woman. He bas seen ber as she
was, wholIy occupied with the King's salvation, his
reform, his decent amusements, the interior of the
royal family, and the amelioration of the people."
The revolutionary schooI, which likes to drag the
memory of the great King through the mud, natu-
rally detests the eminent woman who was his com-
panion, his friend, and his consoler. Writers of
this school would Iike to make of her a type not
simply odious and fatal, but ungraceful, antipathetic,
without radiance, charm, or any sort of fascination.
She is too frequently recalled to mind under the
aspect of a worn old woman, stiff and severe, with
tearless eyes and a face without a smile. We forger
that in her youth she was one of the prettiest women
of ber time. that ber beauty was wonderfully pre-
aerved, and that in ber old age she retained that

MADAME .DE .MAINTENON IH 2682

superiority of style and language, that distinction of
manner and exquisite tact, that gentle firmness Of
character, that charm and elevation of mind, which
at every period of ber life gained ber so much praise
and so many friends.
A rapid glance at a career so full of incident and
so curious to study will suffice to make us under-
stand how much sympathetic charm must bave per-
tained to the woman who could please Scarron and
Louis XIV., Ninon de Lenclos and Madame de
Sévigné, Madame de Montespan and the Queen,
great ladies and nuns, prelates and little children.
Françoise d'Aubigné, the future Madame de Main-
tenon, came into the world, November 27, 1635,
in a prison at Niort, where ber father was confined,
covered with debts and under an accusation of con-
niving with the enemy. Cradled amid lamentations
instead of tender lullabies, she began life sadly.
On coming out of prison, ber Iather took ber at the
age of three years to Martinique, where he went to
seek his fortune. He lost all he had at the gaming-
table and died, leaving his wife and child in poverty.
When she was ten years old Françoise d'Aubignd
returned to France. Her mother confided ber to
the care of an aunt, Madame de Villette, who brought
ber up in the Protestant religion, of which ber ances-
tor, the celebrated Théodore Agrippa d'Aubignd, had
been an intrepid champion, ci very much fear,"
wrote Madame d'Aubigné to Madame de Villette,
"that this I)oor little galeuse may give you a good

90 T.gE WOMEzY OF VERSAIZZES

deal of trouble; that will be the result of your
goodness in being willing to take her. God give
ber the grace to be able to requite you for it! "1
Some rime afterward, Françoise was withdrawn from
the Protestant hands of Madame de Villette and
entrusted to those of another and very zealous
Catholic relative, Madame de Neuillant. "I ruled
in the farmyard," she said afterward, "and it was
there my reign commenced .... A little basket
containing our luncheon was hung on our arms, and
we were given a little book of Pibrac's quatrains,
of which we had to learn several pages every day.
/klong with this a switeh was put in our hands, and
we were charged to prevent the turkeys from going
where they ought hot." It is pretended that at this
period she received ber first declaration of love, and
that from a young peasant. Did she recall it on the
day of ber marriage with the great King ?
She was afterwards placed in a convent of Ursu-
lines af Niort, and subsequently in that of the
Ursulines of rue Saint-Jacques af Paris, where she
abjured Protestantism, but hot without a vigorous
resistance. She already possessed that gift of pleas-
ing which she retained throughout her life. "In my
childhood," she has said herself,  "I was the best
little creature that you can imagine .... I was
really what is called a good child, so much so that
everybody loved me .... When I was a little

1 Letter of July 28, 1646.  Entretiens de qaint-Çyr.

.ADAME DE MAI.TE.57"0.57" I 1682

91

larger I lived in the convents; you know how much
I was loved by my mistresses and my companions.
• . . I thought of nothing but obliging them and
making myself their servant from morning to night."
An orphan and without any resources, Françoise
d'Aubigng, at the age of seventeen, was married in
1652 to the famous poet Scarron, who was only forty-
two years old, but paralyzed, crippled in all his mem-
bers,- Scarron, the burlesque author, the buffoon
par excellence, who demands a brevet as Queen's
invalid, laughs at his afflictions, derides himself and
his pains, and who, while resembling, as he said, a
letter Z, while "having his arms shortened as well
s his legs and his fingers as much as his arms,"
while being, in fine, "an abridgment of human
misery," amuses all the French social world by his
inexhaustible fancy, his frank, Gallic, Rabelaisian
gaiety. When the marriage contract is drawn up,
Scarron declares that he acknowledges in his future
wife four louis of income, two large and roguish
eyes, a very fine figure, a pair of beautiful hands,
and much wit. The notary asks him what settle-
ment he proposes to make on his wife. "Immortal-
ity," he answers.
What tact must not a girl of seventeen bave needed
to make herself respected in the society of the bur-
lesque poet who said: "I shall not make ber commit
any follies, but I shall teach ber a good many."
Just the contrary is what will happen. Françoise
d'Aubign$ will moralize Scarron. She will make

92 THE WOMElV OF V.ERSA1.L.LES

his salon one of the most distinguished social centres
o6 Paris. The best people will regard it as an honor
to be admitted there. A young noble of the court
will be heard to sty: "If if were a question of tak-
ing liberties with the Queen or with Madame
Scu'ron, I would hot deliberate: I would sooner
tal:e them with the Queen." Even Ninon de Len-
clos, Scarron's friend, will bow before such virtue.
And yet it is hot admirers, aspirants, who are lack-
ing to the poet's wife, the belle Itdiene, as people
like to call ber, the siren of whom Petitot bas ruade
such a charnfing picture in enamel, and whom
Mtdemoiselle de Scudry celebrates in enthusiastic
terres in ber romance Clélie, under the pseudonym
of Lyrianne. Queen Christina of Sweden says to
Scarron himself that she is hot surprised to find him
the gayest man in Paris, in spite of his afflictions,
seeing that he bas the most anfiable wife in Paris.
With so good and charming a companion the poor
poet bas less merit in supporting pain more patiently
than the stoics of antiquity. He died in October,
1660, in very Christi,n sentiments, and says on his
deathbed: "My only regret is that I can leave no
property to my wife, whom I have every imaginable
reason to be satisfied with."
As a widow Mdme Scarron seeks esteem, not
love. To please while remaining virtuous, to en-
dure, if need be, privatious and even poverty, but to
win the title of a strong woman, to deserve the sym-
pathy and approbation of honest people, such is th

.alADAME DE MAINTENOI I2V 1682

aim of all her efforts. Well though very simply
dressed; discreet and modest, intelligent and dis-
tinguished, with thut iuborn elegauce which luxury
cannot give and which only cornes by nature; pious
with a sincere and gentle piety; less occupied with
herself than with others; talking well and, which
is much tarer, knowing how to listen; taking an
interest in the joys and sorrows of her friends; skil-
fui in amusing and consoling them; she is justly
regarded as one of the most amiable aud superior
women in Paris. Economical and simple in ber
tastes, she makes her accounts balance perfectly,
than-ks to an annual pension of two thousand livres
granted ber by Queen Anne of Austria. She is
cordially received by Mesdames de Sévignd, de Cou-
langes, de La Fayette, d'Albret, de Richelieu. This
is the most tranquil and doubtless the happiest
pe'iod of ber lire. But the death of her benefac-
tress, the Queen-mother (January °0, 1666), deprives
ber of the pension which is ber only resource. A
noble who is very rich, but old and a debauchee,
asks ber in marriage, but she refuses him. She is
on the point of expatriating herself to folloxv the
Princess de Nemours, who is about to marry the
King of Portugal. Her star retains ber in Frauce,
where she will one day be almost Queen. She
writes to Mademoiselle d'Artigny: "Contrive for
me, I entreat you, the honor of being preseuted to
Madame de Montespan when I go to bid you adieu;
so that I may hot bave fo reproach myself with

94 TtlE WOMEI OF V.ERSAIZZES

having quitted France without having seen its won-
der." Madame de Montespan is hOt yet the mis-
tress of Louis XIV., but ber already famous beauty
and ber position as lady of the Queen's palace gives
her influence. She finds Madame Scarron charming
and obtains the renewal of ber pension of two thou-
sand livres, which prevents ber going fo Portugal.
Rejoiced af this solution of ber difficulties, the
beautiful widow, wholly occupied with serious books
and works of charity, reading the Book of Job and
the maxims of Lu Rochefoucauld, visiting the poor
and bestowing alms in spire of the slenderness of
ber ncome, nstalls herself very modestly in a small
apartment on the rue des Tournelles. Here it is
thut capricious Fortune is coming fo surprise ber.
5Iadame de Montespan bas become the mist-ress of
the King. Already she bas had two children by
him: a daughter, born in 1669, who will lire but
three years; and a son, born in 1670, who will be
the Duke du Maine. These two infants, whose
birth is still a mystery, need an intelligent, devoted,
discreet woman fo bring them up. Madame de
lIontespan thinks of Madame Scarron. The wife
of Colbert, the great minister, had willingly under-
taken charge of the son and daughter of Louis XIV.
and Mademoiselle de La Vallière. Madame Scarron,
solicited by the King himself, accepCs the offer ruade
ber in 1670. She becomes the governess, the second
mother, of the children of Louis XIV. and Madame
de Montespan. To conceal their existence they are

.MADAME .DE MAIN TE.NO1V IN 1682 95

each placed separately, with a nurse, in a little bouse
outside of Paris. Leaving her friends, giving up
society, risking the loss of her reputation by a sin-
gular mystery, Madame Scarron courageously sacri-
fices herself te her new rôle. The family of adultery
goes on increasing. The birth of the Count de
Vexin cornes in 1672, of Mademoiselle de 5Tantes
(the future Duchess de Bourbon) in 1673, of Made-
moiselle de Tours in 1674. According te Madame
de Caylus, Madame Scarron is sent for each time.
She hides the baby under her scarf and herself under
a mask and takes a cab te Paris, dreading lest the
infant may begin te cry while on the road. In 1672
she established herself in a large isolated h_0use net
farfr_om V Madame de Coulanges writes
at this time te Madame de Sévigné: "As for Ma-
dame Scarron, her life is an astonishing sort of
thing. Wîthout exception net a seul bas inter-
course xvith her." Louis XIV., prejudiced at first
against the governess, whom he characterized as a
blue-stocking, begins te recognize her good quali-
ties. Her pension is increased from two thousand te
six thousand livres.
On December °0, 1673, the legitimation of the
Duke du Maine, the Count de Vexin, and Mademoi-
selle de Tours is registered. The following year
these three chilch-en are domiciled at Versailles with
Madame Scarron. She writes te her brother, July
25, 1674: "The life people lead here is very dissi-
pated and the days pass quickly. AI1 my little

96 THE WOME.N OF VERS.AILLES

Princes are cstablishcd hcre, and I think forcvcr.
That, like everything else, bas its good and bad
side."
As soon as she set foot af court, Madame Scarron
laid down a programme for hcrsclf. "Thcrc is noth-
ing clcvcrcr than irreproachable conduct," shc says.
At first Madame de Montcspan congratulatcs hcrself
on having ncar her a pcrson so amiable, so witty,
and such good company. But this fancy does not
last long. The haughty favorite soon bcgins to tor-
ment thc modcst govcrncss. Spats, rcconciliations,
little tiffs, bcgin. Madame Scarron does not attack;
shc dcfcnds hcrsclf. Louis XIV. docs ber justice
and recognizcs ber rare mcrits. At thc close of the
year 1674 ho givcs ber thc money neccssary to pur-
chase thc cstate of Maintenon, fourtccn lcagues from
Paris, ton from Vcrsailles, and four from Chartrcs.
The governcss of the legitimatcd children is thcnce-
forth styled the Marquise de Maintenon.
Were there on her side the skilfully devised
Machiavelian calculations, the subtle hypocrisies,
that her detractors have supposed? We do not
believe it. Is it ber fault if ber intercsts are at one
with hcr dutics, if piety, which to ber is an end in
itself, is to bccomc a mcans in conscquence of unfore-
seen circumstanccs? At bottom, what docs she
desirc abovc all things? To convert Louis XIV.
Docs she wish the adulterous commerce of the sov-
crcign and Madame de Montespan to ceasc? Ycs.
Does she wish to become the King's mistress ? 1o.

MADAME DE MAINTENON IN 1682 97

When Louis XIV., tired of the pride and violence
of the favorite, depurts from ber, does Madame de
Muintenon try to monopolize him for herself? Not
at all. It is Mademoiselle de Fontanges who will
pick up the left-hund sceptre. And when Mademoi-
selle de Fontnges dies, will Madame de Muintenon
have the notion of replucing her? In no wise. She
will huve but one object.- to bring back the King to
the Queen, and this object she will attain.
And yet people will say, she is the friend of
Madame de Montespun, she is under obligations to
ber. That is true; but never, even at the time
when she had most need of her benefactress, hus she
said a word of approbation, of encouragement for
adultery. Never bas she sacrificed her principles.
The fact of interesting oneself in natural children,
of bringing them up in a Christian manner, of pity-
ing and loving them, is no more a laudution of their
origin than the establishment of a foundling asylum
is the consecration of adultery or concubinage. Is
Madame de Maintenon reproached for ber amiubility,
ber attentions to Madame de Montespan ? But who
was there at the court of Louis XIV. who did not
show respect to the favorite? Did not the Queen
herself treat ber kindly and accept ber first as her
lady of the palace and ufterwurds as superintendent
of ber household ?
There are also muny who accuse Madame de Main-
tenon of hypocrisy in her inclination to withdraw,
and the promises she made herself to leave the court

98 THE WOMElg OF VER8AIZZES

as soon as possible. But why forget that ambition,
like love, has its alternations of ardor and lassitude,
of passion and satiety? Do not the fruits one has
most desired often lose their savor the moment they
are possessed ? And is not reality the grave of hope ?
Mtdame de Maintenon one day said she would be an
enigma fo posterity, lgevertheless she will only be
an enigma fo herself. Ambitious and undeceived,
eager for honors whose nothingness she will be sen-
sible of, there will be no hypocrisy in her soul, but
plenty of contradictions.
The great defect of historians is their desire to
find characters all of a piece. In nearly all natures
there is both good and evil, truth and falsehood,
strength and weakness. Madame de Maintenon
does not escape this common law. She merits
neither the odious satires of her adversaries nor the
exaggerated praises of her admirers. But we do not
hesitate fo declare, for our own part, that when if is
a question of judging this celebrated woman, the
balance ought, in our opinion, to lean fo the side of
eulogy rather than fo tbat of criticism.
Madame de Maintenon's detractors reckon it a
crime in her to have injured Madame de Montespan
by the pious counsels she gave to Louis XIV.
Would they prefer then that she should have marie
herself the pander of adultery, and employed her
intelligence in reconciling the King with his mis-
tress? Do they prefer the part of a go-between to
that of a moralizer? She is engaged fo educate the

.MADAME .DE MAINTE.NON IN 7682 99

children of Madame de Montespan, but certainly not
to favorize ber amours. And yet she is very well
aware of the malevolence, the calumnies, to which
ber attitude may give rise. One of the Entretiens de
Saint-Çyr proves this. "So there we were, irre-
trievably embroiled," she says, "without having had
any intention of breaking off, and even without hav-
ing formally done so. It certainly was not my fault,
and yet if either of us had any reason to complain it
was she, for she could say with truth: 'I was the
cause of ber elevation, I gained her the King's
acquaîntance and approval; she is becoming the
favorite and I am driven away.' It is true I had
many things to say in return. For was I wrong in
accepting the King's friendship on the conditions I
had laid down .9 Was I wrong in having given him
good advice ? Did not Madame de Montespan know
that I would neglect no means of breaking off ber
guilty commerce ?"
A curious thing is the respective situations of
these two women, both so witty and intelligent, of
whom Louis XIV. said: "I had more trouble to
make peace between them than to re-establish it in
Turkey." Madame de Maintenon wrote, June 14,
1679: "Madame de Montespan is absolutely deter-
mined to believe that I ara trying to be the King's
mistress. 'But,' said I to ber, 'are there three of us
then?'--'Yes,' she answered me, 'I in naine, that
girl [Mademoiselle de Fontanges] in fact, and you
in heart.' I replied that she paid too great heed to

100 THE WOMEN OF VER8AILLES

ber resentment. She answered that she knew my
artifices and was only sorry that she had not given
heed to ber presentiments. She reproached me with
the presents she had given me and with those of the
King, and said she had nourished me and I was
stifling ber. Do you understand the situation ? It
is a curious thing that we cannot live together, and
yet cannot separate. I love ber and can never per-
suade myself that she hates me." Again Madame
de M,intenon writes, in 1680: "To-day Madame de
Montespan and I took a walk together arm in arm
and laughing a good deal; we are on none the better
terms for that."
Sovereigns or private persons, princesses or civil-
ians' wives, great ladies or women of the people,
how much they resemble each other! Had hot La
Bruyère good reason to say: "At court and in the
city there are the saine passions, the saine frailties,
the same pettiness, the saine caprices .... If he bas
good eyes, one may easily see the little town, the
rue Saint-Denis, transported as if were fo Ver-
sailles and Fontainebleau."
Madame de Montespan, even while irritated with
the clever governess, must, after ail, bave recognized
that she was undergoing a sort of retributive pun-
ishment. H,d she hot supplanted ber own friend,

Mademoiselle de La Vallière ?
fully deceived Queen Marie
ber conscience tell ber that
deserved ? She is vanquished.

Had she not shame-
Th!rèse ? Does not
ber chastisement is
Let ber resign her-

.MADAME DE MAI.NTEIO.N I.N 1682 101

self l Doubtless it is painful for this haughty Morte-
mart, who has always held her own with the great
King, who has looked the demigod in the face, to
humble herself before a woman she had rescued
from poverty, before a governess who is seven years
older than herself. But what can be done about it?
Thenceforward Madame de Maintenon's position
is beyond attack. The politic woman has no longer
any need to make a stepping-stone of the cradle of
the legitimated. It is hot she who brings up the
last two children of Madame de Montespan and
Louis XIV. (the future Duchess of Orleans and the
Count de Toulouse). She bas now her own settled
place at court. She is sought for and flattered.
When she spends a few days at ber ch£teau of
Maintenon, the greatest personages go there to pay
their homage. Madame de Sévigné writes concern-
ing ber, July 17, 1680: "People no longer approach
the lady without fear and respect, and the ministers
pay court to her like the rest .... She is intro-
ducing the King to an entirely new region; I mean
the commerce of friendship and conversation, with-
out chicanery and without constraint; he appears
charmed with it."
At the age of ten years the little Duke du Maine,
Madame de Maintenon's cherished pupil, had just
passed out of the hands of men. Louis XIV. re-
warded the care she had bestowed on this child by
appointing her lady of the bedchamber to the Dau-
phiness. When this princess arrives la France she

:[0 THE IFOIEIY OF VERSMILLES

is met at Schlestadt by Bossuer and Madame de
Maintenon. "If," writes Madame de Svign, "Ma-
dame the Dauphiness fancies that all the men and
women have as much wit as these specimens, she will
be greatly deceived; truly, it is a great advantage
to be of the first order." 1 Madame de Maintenon
possesses the boon she had so much desired, consid-
eration. The most eminent prelates hold her in high
esteem. The devout party regard her as an oracle.
It is she who is laboring at the King's conversion,
she who is bringing him back to the Queen, sh_e_
who, with insinuating and gentle__eloquence, 
at court the cause of morality and religio_A."

* Letter of Feb. 14, 1680.

T the side of those imperious types which
impose themselves on the attention of poster-
ity, there is a place in history for more tranquil,
gentler, and more meditative figures who, in life,
remained in the shade, in silence, and who may be
said to retain a sort of modesty and reserve even
beyond the tomb. Princesses are met with whom
the tumult of the world, the éclat of power, the
splendor of luxury, could not detach from their
native melancholy; who bave been humble and timid
in the midst of grandeurs; who bave ruade a soli-
tude for themselves, and who, to use Bossuet's ex-
pression, bave found in their oratories, spite of all
the agitations of the court, the Carmel of Elias, the
desert of John, the mountain which so often wit-
nessed the lamentations of Jesus.
There is a blending of benevolence and sadness,
of tenderness and chagrin, of compassion and kind-
ness, in the stalle of these women. They seem to
bave occupied the highest situations only to in-
spire us with philosophic reflections and Christian
103

104 TtE WO.MEN OF V.ERSAILL.ES

thoughts, to prove to us by their example that hap-
piness does hot dwell in palaces, that external things
do not impart real joys, that "grandeur is a dream,
youth a flower that fades, health but a deceptive
naine."1 We do not sufiiciently contemplate these
plaintive, pale, and melancholy apparitions of his-
tory. But if one takes pains to study them seriously,
he soon becomes attached to them, he prefers these
Christian types to the visages of proud and sensual
women which reflect ail the passions of paganism.
One is pleased with half tints after too glaring colors ;
noise makes silence beloved, and the eye, wearied
by the rays of a too vivid flame, finds repose in
softer lustre.
Among the number of these wise and prudent
women whose career is hot fruitful in dramatic
catastrophes, but is none the less full of useful les-
sons, must be placed Marie Arme Christine Victoire,
daughter of the Elector Ferdinand, Duke of Bavaria,
and Dauphiness of France. The life of this irin-
cess, born in 1660, married in 1680 to the son of
Louis XIV., died at Versailles in 1690, at the age
of twenty-nine, may be summed up in one word:
melancholy. She was one of those women, disgusted
with earth and aspiring to heaven, of whom Bossuer
might have said, as he did of the Queen: "The
earth, ber origin and sepulchre, is not yet low
enough to receive ber; she would like to disappear

1 Bossuet, Oraison funèbre de la reine Marie- Thérès¢.

a.ltogether before the majesty of the King of kings."
Her education had been austere. The court of
Munich resembled a convent. "People rose there
at six o'clock every morning, heard Mass at nine,
dined at ten, were present every day at Vespers, and
by six in the evening there was no one there, that
being the hour when they took their supper in order
to go to bed at seven." 1
Far from being dazzled by her new fortune, the
young Princess did not leave the pious and patri-
archal court where she passed ber childhood without
profound regret. She produced a good impression
in her new home as soon as she ruade her appear-
ance. She was not beautiful, but ber grace, ber
manners, ber natural dignity, and still more, her
merit, her learning, and her kindness gave her charm.
One of the persons sent by Louis XIV. to meet ber
wrote to the King: "Madame the Dauphiness is hot
pretty, Sire; but pass over the first glance and you
will be very well content with ber." She received
Bossuer, who had gone to meet her at Schlestadt, with
perfect courtesy. "I take an interest in all you
bave taught M. the Dauphin," she said to him; "do
hot, I beg you, refuse to give me your instruc*ions
also, and be assured that I will endeavor to profit by
them."
The great bishop was struck by the knowledge of
the Princess. She had an accurate acquaintance

Mémoires de Coulanges.

106 THE WOME OF VERSAILLES

with all the lnguages spoken in Europe, and even
with the language of the Church, which had been
taught her in childhood. 1 Bossuer was sincere when
he said of her, three years later: "We admired ber
as soon as she appered, and the hing has confirmed
our judgment."  Appointed First Almoner to the
Dauphiness, he accompanied her from Schlestdt to
Versailles. During the journey a ceremony was
performed which strongly contrasted with the trans-
ports of joy the Princess had encountered on her
way ever since entering France. On Wednesday,
Mrch 6, 1680, Bossuet put the ashes on her fore-
head in the seignorial chapel of the ch£teau of
Brignicourt-sur-Saulx. "Woman," said he, "re-
member that thou wert taken from the dust and must
one day return to it." Alas! the prediction wa
accomplished ten years later, and the Princess,
beside whose deathbed Bossuet stood, reminded him
of the solemn words of that Ash Wednesday. 3
Louis XIV. gave his daughter-in-law the most
friendly and courteous reception. She had Madame
the Duchess de Richelieu for lady of honor, M,dame
de Mintenon for second lady of the bedchamber,
and Mesdemoiselles de Laval, de Biron, de Gontaut,
de Tonnesse, de Jarnac, de Rambures, as maids of

1 Pierre de La Broue, Bishop of Mirepoix, Oraison funèbre de la
Dauphine.
 Bossuet, Oraison funèbre de la rene Marie-Thérèse.
8 See the learned and remarkble work of M. Floquet.. Bossuer
réceçteur du 1)auçhin.

TttE BA VARIA.N .DA UPItI.NE88 107

honor. The King came after dinner to spend sev-
eral hours in the roon of the Princess, where he
found Madame de M,intenon, and to this visit he
devoted the time he had been accustomed to pass
with 5Ldame de Montespan.
The early years of the marriage of the Dauphiness
were tranquil. Her husband, who was but a year
older than she, showed at this time a sincere attach-
ment for ber. The birth of their son, the Duke of
Burgundy, caused transports of joy hot only at court
but throughout France. In the night of August
5-6, 1682, when the time of ber delivery ch'ew nigh,
Louis XIV. h,d a mattress carried into the chamber
of the Dauphiness, where he spent the night with
the Queen. He encouraged his daughter-in-law with
affectionate words. Several times he supported her
while she walked up and down in the chamber,
telling ber he would be very well satisfied if she had
a daughter, providing she suffered less and were
promptly delivered. All the places and avenues of
Versailles were ruade us light us day by a multitude
of lanterns and torches carried by persons awaiting
the happy event. The next day, when the Princess
l,d brought a son 1 into the world, the joy bordered
on delirium. Everybody took the liberty of embrac-
iag the King. u Spinola bit his finger in the warmth

The Dauphiness was brought to bed in the Superintendent's
pavillon, situ,ted at the extremity of the south wing, opposite the
Swiss lake.
Abbé de Choisy, 2tIémoires pour servir à rhistoire de Louis
XIV.

108 TttE IVOME! OF VER8AILLE8

of his enthusiasm, and hearing him cry out: "Sire,"
said he, "I ask Your Majesty's pardon; but if I had
hot bitten you, you would hot bave paid any atten-
tion to me." There were dances, illuminations,
transports, everywhere. The people who were mak-
ing bonfires burned even the flooring intended for
the grand gallery. "Let them alone," said Louis
XIV., smiling; "we will bave other flooring." He
showed the newly born to the crowd, and the air
resounded with enthusiastic acclamations.
Madame de Maintenon wrote to ber friend, Ma-
dame de Saint-Géran, the next day, August 7, 1682:
"The King has ruade a very fine present to Madame
the Dauphiness; he has had the little prince in his
arms for a moment. He congratulated Monseigneur
like a friend; he gave the first tidings to the Queen;
in fine, everybody says he is adorable; Madame de
Montespan is withering at out joy. We are living
with every appearance of sincere friendship. Some
people say I want to put myself in her place, not
knowing either my aversion for that sort of com-
merce nor the aversion I wish to inspire in the King
for it. Some think that I wish to bring ber back to
God. There is a better ruade heart for which I bave
greater hopes."
This heart, that of Louis XIV., was daily inclin-
ing more toward religion. The time of scandals was
over. Every cloud had disappeared from the con-
jugal sky of Louis XIV. and Marie Thérèse. The
quarrels of Madame de Montespan and Madame de

THE BA VA_RIAN DA UPHIYE 109

Maintenon were appeased. These two ladies no
longer visited each other. But whenever they met
elsewhere they spoke and even held conversations so
lively and cordial in appearance that any one who
had seen them and wus hot conversant with court
intrigues would bave thought them the best friends
in the world. 1 Speaking of Madame de Maintenon,
the Queen said gratefully: "The King bas never
treated me with so much tenderness as since he lis.
tened fo ber." The year 1683 promised to be a happy
one for the saintly and gentle companion of Louis
XIV. But death was approaching rapidly. A
terrible malady was about to carry off the Queen,
who was only forty-five years old.
This good and virtuous princess of whom Bossuet
bas said: "She goes with the Lamb, for she is
worthy"; this Queen who wore the lilied mantl as
if it were haircloth; this woman who was one of
those elect souls of whom the Apostle Saint Jhn
says: "They are without spot before the throne of
God, sine maculd enim sunt ante thronum Dei "; this
pious Marie Th6rèse died, as she had lived, with
angelic sweetness. Louis XIV., who had caused
her so many troubles, mourned for her sincerely.
"What!" he cried, "there is no more a Queen in
France. WhatI I ara a widower; I could never
bave believed it, and yet I ara so, and of the most
meritorious princess .... This is the first pain
she has ever given me."

1 ouvenirs d« laàam« d« Caylus.

110 TtE WO.ME7" OF VERSAILLE

Louis XIV., so often accused of coldness and
egotism, had on the contrary a great fund of kind-
ness. He had been too affectionate a son tobe an
absolutely bad husband. He wrote on the subject of
the death of Arme of Austria, in the Memoirs
intended for the Dauphin: "However great might
be the courage on which I wished to pique myself,
if was impossible that a son bound by the ties of
nature could see his mother die without excessive
grief, since even those toward whom she had acted
as an enemy could not avoid regretting her, and
avoving that there had never been a more sincere
piety, a more intrepd firmness, more generous a
bounty. The vigor with which this princess had
maintained my dignity when I could not myself de-
rend it, was the most important and useful service
that eould ever be rendered me .... My respect for
her was not one of those eonstrained duties whieh are
performed for the sake of deeorum. The habit I had
formed of having ordinarily the saine dwelling and
the saine table with her, the assiduity with whieh I
was seen to visit her several rimes every day, no
matter how pressing my affairs might be, were not
a lav I h«d imposed on myself for reasons of State,
but a sign of the pleasure I took in her eompany."
No; whatever people may say, the man who wrote
these lines was not wanting in heart. No one has
felt more keenly that incomparable grief, that rend-
ing whieh tears from you more than hall your soul:
the loss of a mother. Mademoiselle de Montpensier,

THE BA VARIA_ DA UPIIINESS 111

an ocular witness of the death of Anne of Austria,
says that at the moment when she yielded ber last
breath, Louis XIV. "was stifling; they threw water
on him; he was suffocating." All night long he
shed torrents of tears.
The death of Queen Marie Thrèse did not cause
him such painful anguish, but still he manifested
a keen sensibility on this occasion. "The court,"
says Mtdame de Caylus, "was pained by his grief.
That of Madame de Maintenon, which I observed
very closely, seemed to me sincere and founded upon
esteem and gratitude. I would hot say as much for
the tears of Madame de Montespan, whom I remember
to have seen entering Mdame de Muintenon's apart-
ments, but I cannot say why or wherefore. All that
I know is that she wept a good deal and that all ber
actions seemed to show a trouble founded on that of
her mind, and perhaps on the fear of falling into the
hands of her husband."
Marie Thrèse died July 30, 1683, at the château
of Versailles, in the bedchamber which has a view
of the Orangery and also of the Swiss lake, and of
which we bave already had several occasions to
speak. 1 After the Queen's death this room was
occupied by the Dauphiness, who, from the hierarchi-
cal point of view, had become the principal woman
of the court. The King wished to make the salon
of his daughter-in-law the most brilliant centre in

Room 1o. 115 of the Notice du Iusée de Versailles.

112 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

France. He sometimes went to see her, taking with
him his rarest jewels and stuffs for her to select from;
the test were divided into lots which the maids of
honor and ladies who had been presented drew lots
for, or perhaps had the honor of playing for with
ber, and even with the King. While hoca was in
fashion, and belote the King had wisely inerdicted
so dangerous a game, he played it in the apartments
of Madame the Dauphiness; but when he lost he
paid as many louis as the others had staked small
pieces. 1
However, in spire of ail the court amusements, the
Dauphiness yielded to an invincible sadness. She
was stifling la this atmosphere of intrigues, agita-
tions, and tumultuous pleasures. Disgusted with
that "region where joys are visible but false, and
whose vexations hidden but real," u where "eagerness
for the spectacles, the gclat, and the applause at the
theatres of Molière and Harlequin, for banquets,
hunts, ballets, and tourneys conceals so many anxie-
ries and fears," she round like Bruyère that
healthy mind acquires at court a taste for solitude
and retreat." In spire of al1 his obliging atten-
tions, Louis XIV. could hot succeed in making
ber love the world nor induce ber to hold court
receptions. She passed ber lire sadly in the small
rooms contiguous to her Versailles apartments with

I ouv«nirs de Madame de Caylus.
a La Bruyre De la Cour.

TttE BA VARIA2g .DA U.PttI2gE,..q,..q 118

a German woman whom she liked, and who was
called La Bessola, as her sole companion.
This chambermaid, whom the Princess Palatine
represents under an odious aspect, had nothing bad
about her, according to Madame de Caylus. Never-
theless, she was accused of keeping the princess
sequestrated, as one might say, and preventing her
from responding to the King's gracious attentions.
The Dauphin, tired of the perpetual tête--tête of his
wife and La Bessola, who always talked in German,
a language he was unacquainted with, sought other
society. He was smitten with Mademoiselle de
Rambures, one of his wife's maids of honor, and he
fell into the habit of spending most of his time at
the bouse of his natural sister, the beautiful and
witty Princess de Conti, the daughter of Louis XIV.
and Mademoiselle de La Vallière.
The Dauphiness did not even try to retain a heart
which was escaping from ber. Either through
timidity or lack of self-confidence, she accepted ber
lot with painful resignation, while suffering bitterly
on account of it. Hopeless of consoling ber, Louis
XIV. left her to the solitude from which nothing
could induce ber to emerge, and she ended by being
deserted by al1 the court as well as by the King.
Madame de Caylus remarks with much justice:
"Perhaps the good qualities of the Princess contrib-
uted to ber isolation. The enemy of scandal and
mockery, she could neither endure nor comprehend
the raillery and malignant style of the court, all the

14 THE IVOMEN OF VERSAILLES

less because she did not understand its subtleties."
Madame de Caylus adds this judicious observation:
"I bave seen foreigners, even those whose spirit
seemed most friendly toward French manners, some-
tin, es disconcerted by our continual irony."
A painting by Delutel, after Mignard, 1 now hung
in the Hall of the Queen's Guards, represents the
Dauphiness surrounded by ber husband and ber
three sons. The Dauphin, wearing a red velvet coat,
is sitting near a table, caressing a dog. The Prin-
cess is at the other side of the table, with the little
Duke of Berry ' on ber lap. In front of ber the
Duke of Anjou, s in a blue robe, is sitting on a cush-
ion; the Duke of Burgundy, in a red robe and wear-
ing the order of the Holy Spirit, is standing up and
holding a lance. In the air two Loves support u
rich drapery with one hand and scatter flowers with
the other. This painting seems to breathe tran-
quillity. A charming quiet and satisfaction marks
the aspect of the Dauphiness. But the picture is
more allegorical than real, and does hot show the
Princess as she actually was. Her vexations, ber
sufferings, ber gloomy presentiments, do hot appear
in it. This is not the exact image of the woman
about whom Madame de La Fayette says in ber
Memoirs: "This poor Princess sees nothing but

1 No. 2116 of the Notice du Musée de Versailles.
2 The Duke of Berry born August 31 1686.
 The Duke of Anjou (the future lhflip V. of Spuin), born
December 19 1683.

THE BA VARIAN DA UPHINE,.g8 115

the worst for herself and takes no part whatever in
festivities. She has very bad health and a sad dis-
position vhich, added to the little consideration she
enjoys, deprives ber of the pleasure which any one
except the Princess of Bavaria would feel in arriv-
ing at almost the first place in the world."
Far from rejoicing at ber lofty fortune, she longed
for Germany where ber childhood had passed so
modestly, and said to another German woman,
Madame the Duchess of Orleans (the Princess Pala-
tine): "We are both of us very unlmppy, but the
difference between us is that you tried to avoid it as
mlch as you could, while I desired with all my might
to corne here; therefore I bave deserved my unhap-
piness more than you." She thought like Massillon
that "grandeur is a weight which wearies," "that
nothlng which must pass away can be great; it is
but  theatrical decoration; death closes the scene
and the representation; each lays aside the pomps
belonging to his character and his fictitious titles,
and both sovereign and slave are reduced to their
nothingness and primitive vileness."
The Dauphiness had a presentiment of her ap-
proaching end. People thought ber mad because
she was constantly saying that she felt herself irrev-
ocably lost. But the poor Princess, who well knew
that ber moral and physical sufferings were but too
real, smiled sadly when people seemed incredulous
concerning them. "I shall have to die to justify
myself," said she. Bossuer has remarked in his

116 THE WOME_N OF V.ERSAILLES

funeral oration on Queen Marie Tharèse: "Even
innocent seuls have the tears and the bitterness of
penitence." Melancholy and piety are net incom-
patible; no sky is se clear as te bave no clouds, and
Christ Himself bas wept.
Short in duration, long in suffering, the life of
the Dauphiness was hidden beneath a sombre veil.
This young Princess, for whom Providence had at
first seemed te reserve the most brilliant destiny,
was te die at the age of twenty-nine, worn out by
chagrin and consumed by languor. Convinced that
ber last delivery had killed ber, she tenderly em-
braced ber son, the Duke of Berry, and as she gave
him ber blessing, she repeated this line of Andro-

"Ah ! mon fils, que tes jours coûtent cher à ta mère ! "1

The earth, which was like an exile te her, seemed te
her, moreover, unworthy of regrets. She died "will-
ingly and with calmness," according te the expres-
sion of ber compatriot the Duchess of Orleans. A
few hours before breathing ber last she had said te
this Princess, ber companion in misfortune: "To-
day I shall prove that I bave net been mad in com-
plaining of my sufferings."

1 Ah ! my son how dear thy lire has cost thy mother I

VII

THE MARRIAGE OF MADAME DE MAINTENON

«-]- HAVE had an astonishing fortune, but it is
not my work. I ara where you see me with-
out having desired it, or hoped for it, or foreseen it.
I say this only to you, because the world would hot
believe it."
Thus Madame de Maintenon expressed herself in
one of her conversations with the Demoiselles of
SaintCyr, and we believe this appreciation is exact.
The premature death of the Queen was an event
which surprised everybody. Twenty-three years
before, August 26, 1660, she who then called herself
Madame Scarron had just been present at the solemn
entry of Louis XIV. and Marie Thérèse into their
good city of Paris. She wrote the next day to her
friend, Madame de Villarceaux: "I do hot think
anything so beautiful can ever have been seen, and
the Queen must have retired last night very well
satisfied with the husband she has chosen."
He who should then have said to the wife of the
burlesque poet: "This husband whom you admire
so much will one day be your own," would certainly
117

118 TtlE II'OMElV OF VERSAILLES

have seemed to her a strange prophet. The fictions
of romance are not nearly so prodigious as the reali-
ties of history, and vhen Madame de Maintenon at
the age of fifty, saw a king of forty-seven, and what
a king! come to offer to be ber husband, she must
have thought herself the plaything of a dream. One
would be tempted to believe that she could only
bave been the companion of an aging sovereign who
had already lost the greater part of his prestige.
But the absolute contrary is true.
The year when Louis XIV. espoused Scarron's
widow was the apogee, the zenith, of the royal star.
Never had the sun of the great King been more
inposing, nor his haughty device: _lYec loluriSus
imjoar, more dazzling. It was the epoch when, in
face of his motionless enemies, he enlarged and for-
tified the fmntiers of the realm, conquered Stras-
bourg, bombarded Genoa and Algiers, finished the
luxurious constructions of his splendid Versailles,
was the terror of Europe and the idol of France.
 And yet Louis XIV. was in love with Madame
de Maintenon while Madame de Maintenon was not
in love with Louis XIV.! She had veneration,
gratitude, devotion for him, but not love. There is
nothing surprising in that. Women, in fact, are
seldom enamoured of the men to whom they owe
their fortune. In general, they like better to protect
than to be protected. They find it sweeter to
inspire gratitude than to experience it. What they
like best of all is to show their superiority, and,

MARRIAGE OF .MADA.ME DE MAINTENON 119

precisely because their sex seems tobe condemned
by nature to a dependent situation, they are happy
when the r8les are exchanged, when if is they who
dominate, protect, oblige. Madame de Maintenon
owed Louis XIV. too much tobe enamoured of him.
Let us add that the age at which she married him
was no longer that of love, and that the simplicity,
the freshness of ideas and sentiments of a young
ingénue from across the Rhine cannot be expected in
a woman of fifty. Madame de Maintenon felt that
the King would have been ridiculous if he had loved
her as he did Mademoiselle de La Yallière, and that
the time for erotic'ecstasies was irrevocably passed.
She justly reiiected that Louis XIV. was faithful to
God rather than to her, and that the fear of hell and
the desire for salvation had the greatest share in the
unexpected change which had been suddenly pro-
duced in the morals of a sovereign until then so
voluptuous and so fickle. In the Louis XIV. of
1684 the devotee took precedence of the lover, piety
carried the day against passion, and if was religion
still more than tenderness, more even than habit,
which prevented Madame de Maintenon from having
rivals.
To sure up, the King's sentiment for her was of
the most complex kind. There was in ita mingling
of religion and physical love, a calculation of rea-
son and an impulse of the heart, an aspiration after
the mild joys of family life and romantic inclina-
.t.ion: a sort of compact b¢tw¢en French good sense,

I0 THE WOMEIY OF VERSAILLES

sub]ugated by the wit, tact, and wisdom of an
eminent woman, and Spanish imagination, allured
by the notion of having extricated this elect woman
from poverty in order to make her almost a queen.
Finally, it must be noted that Louis XIV., always
spiritual, always religious, was intimately convinced
that Madame de Maintenon had been sent to him by
heaven for his salvation, and that the pious counsels
of this saintly woman, who knew how to tender
devotion so amiable and attractive, seemed to him
to be so many inspirations from on high.
It must hot be believed, however, that the affec-
tion of Louis XIV. for Madame de Maintenon was
purely ideal. If the soul counted in it for nearly
all, the senses stood for something. On this head
we shall content ourselves with invoking the" testi-
mony of the Abbé de Choisy:--
"He was unwilling to remarry," says the abbé,
"through tenderness for his people. He already
had three grandsons, and wisely ]udged that the
princes of a second marriage might, in course of
rime, cause civil wars. On the other hand, he could
hot dispense with a wife. Madame de Maintenon
pleased him greatly. Her gentle and insinuating
wit promised him an agreeable intercourse capable of
recreating him after the cares of royalty. Her per-
son ws still engaging, and her age prevented her
from having children."
It must hot be forgotten, moreover, that the life
of women who are veritably beautiful resembles

MARRIAGE OF MADA.llE DE .MAI.NTE.NO.N 121

that of nature in having its bright autumnal days,
its Saint Martin's summer. The time of conquests
with such women is far more prolonged than people
ordinarily believe. The truth in respect to this is
unknown because of a widespread prejudice which
limits feminine successes to a certain age, and
because loyers, being no longer flattered by the
affection of women who are not young, sometimes
take as much pains fo hide their passion as they
would to display it if their idols were only twenty.
For my own part I am persuaded that men above
forty are less pleasing than women of the saine age.
Their money, their position, or their wit may still
procure them successes, but deprived of these ad-
vantages they would produce no impression. On
the other hand, women who have passed their fortieth
year, when their beauty is real, still preserve charms
which make them loved for themselves independ-
ently of any advantage except their beauty. But
this does not prevent the men who make laws and
impose ideas from asserting that a woman of thirty
is as old as a man of forty. To our mind, this
theory is merely another proof of masculine fatuity.
Madame de Maintenon is not the only example of
a woman whose prestige has survived her youth.
Diana of Poitiers was nineteen years older than
Henry II. She was forty-eight when the prince
ascended the throne, and when he died, twelve years
later, she was still hîs mistress, the queen of his
heart. The son of Madame de Sévign was only

122 THE WOMEI OF VERSAIL.LES

twenty-four when he became enamoured of inon de
Lenclos, then fifty-five, a.nd gave up Champmesl6,
then in the full splendor of her youth and talent,
for ber. Like Diana of Poitiers and Ninon de Len-
clos, .Madame de Maintenon was remarkably well
preserved. She had never had any children, and
the regularity of her conduct had contributed to
banish wrinkles from her noble and tranquil visage.
She reminded one of those last fair days of autumn
when the sun's rays, though they dazzle less, have
none the less a penetrating softness. As the Abb6
de Choisy says: "She was not young, but she had
lively and brilliant eyes, ber face sparkled with
intelligence."
Even Saint-Simon, ber pitiless detractor, is obliged
to adroit "that she had much wit, incomparable grace,
an easy and sometimes a reserved and deferential air,
together with a manner of speech which was gentle,
just, well-chosen as to words, and natura]ly eloquent
and brief." Lamartine, that admirable genius who
had an intuitive appreciation of things, bas defined
the sentiment of Louis XIV. better than any one:
"The scruples of Louis XIV. had been aided by his
attraction toward Madame de Maintenon, a mature
beauty, but preserved by the retirement and chastity
of her life from that worldly evaporation which soon
withers other women. An attachment to Madame
de Maintenon seemed to him almost the saine thing
as an attachment to virtue itself. The charms of
confidence and piety, intercourse with a spirit both

MARRIAGE OF _MADAME DE IAI1VTEN05 1"°3

upright and refined, the pride of raising what one
loves to one's own level, and finally, it must be said
to the King's honor, the safe counsels he received
from this superior woman,--all these lofty and ten-
der emotions had increased Madame de Maintenon's
empire, so feminine yet so virile, to absolute domi-
nation." 1
It appears that Louis XIV. was barely a widower
when he offered ber his hand. M. de La Rochefou-
cauld had taken ber by the arm at the very moment
vhen the Queen's soul departed, and 1)ushing her
into the royal apartment, had said to her: "This is
hot the rime to leave the King; he needs you."
For an instant a proect of marriage between
Louis XIV. and the Infanta of Portugal was talked
of. But this rumor was speedily contradicted. The
King preferred Madame de Maintenon to the young-
est and most brilliant princesses of Europe.
M. Lavallée, who bas ruade a conscientious study
of Madame de Maintenon's lire, bas fixed upon the
first six months of the year 1684 as the period when
the secret marriage was contracted, but bas hot been
able to ascertain the exact day. It was mysteriously
celebrated in a private oratory of Versailles by the
Archbishop of Paris, in presence of Père La Chaise
who said the Mass, of Bontemps, first valet-de-
chambre to the King, and of Madame de Montchev-
feuil, one of Madame de Maintenon's best friends.

1 Lamartine, ltuàe sur Bossuer.

124 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

Sint_:_Simon speaks of it with horror as "the mos_t
profound humi_l_iation, the most public, most lating,
most unheard-of," a humiliation "which posterity
will be unwilling to credit, reserved by fortune, hot
to dare mention Providence here, for the haughtiest
of kings." This was hot Arnauld's opinion.- "I do
not know," he writes, "what can be reprehended in
this marriage contracted according to the regula-
tions of the Church. It is not humiliating except
in the estimation of the feeble-minded, who think
it a wekness in the King tobe able to resolve on
marrying a woman older than himself and so far
below him in rank. This marriage unites him with
a person whose mind and virtue he esteems, and in
intercourse with whom he finds innocent pleasures
which recreate him after his great occupations." 1
Madame de Maintenon seemed to bave attained
the summit of ber desires. But she was too intelli-
gent, she had studied the problems of human destiny
too closely and anxiously, hot to be attacked by sad-
ness. It was she who wrote: "Before being at court
I can testify that I had never known ennui; but I
have experienced it thoroughly since then, and I
believe I never could have borne up under it if I had
not thought that it was there God wished me to be.
There is no true happiness but in serving God."
This melancholy of which the expression inces-
santly recurs, like a plaintive and monotonous re-

* Arnauld, letter to M. de Yancel, June 8, 1688.

MARRIAGE OF MADAME DE MAINTE.NON 15

frain, in Madame de Maintenon's letters, is ull the
more striking because it is a profound instruction.
Here we have a woman, better say a fairy, who, at
the age when the most splendid beauties hear the
hour strike for their retirement, arrives at a truly
prodîgious situation and at fifty years of age takes
possession of a sovereign of forty-seven in all the
prestige of victory and power; a woman who with
an ability that borders on witchery supplants all
the fairest, richest, and noblest young girls in the
world, not one of whom would hot have been proud
to unite herself with the great King; a woman who,
ufter having been several times reduced to poverty,
becomes, next to Louis XIV., the most impor-
tant personality in France! And yet she is hot
happy l Is it because the King does hot love her
enough ? Not ut all. For the letters he writes her
if he is obliged to remain away from her for several
days are expressed in this fashion: "I profit by the
occasion of Montchevreuil's departure to assure you
of a verity which pleases me too much to let me tire
of telling it to you; it is that I cherish you always,
that I esteem you more highly than I can express,
and that in fine, whatever affection you may have
for me, I have still more for you, being with all my
heart entirely yours." 1
If she is sad, is it because one step yet remains to
be taken in the marvellous ladder of her fortune?

1 Letter written during the siege of Mons, April, 1691.

16 TIIE |VOMEN OF VERSAILLES

Is it because she has not been able to transform her
almost royal armchair into a throne? In no wise.
If she had been recognized as Queen she would still
h«ve remained sorrowful, and ber brother might still
bave said to her: "Had you then a promise of espous-
ing the Eternal Father ?"
However, she had converted a fickle man into a
constant one. This quinquagenarian had fixed the
sovereign whose heart La Vallière with all ber love,
Montespan with all her wit, had not been able to
retain. During more than thirty years she was to
reign without a rival over the soul of the greatest of
all kings, and it was not the monarch alone but the
monarchy which was to incline respectfully before
her. The whole court was at her feet, soliciting a
word, a glance. As the ladies of Saint-Cyr say in
their notes, "parliaments, princes, cities, regiments,-
addressed themselves to her as to the King; none of
the nobles of the realm, the cardinals and bishops,
knew any other way." She was at the culminating
point of repute, consideration, and fortune, and yet_2__,
I repeat, she was not happy!
Fénelon wrote to her, October 4, 1689: "God often
tries others by crosses which appear as crosses. You
He desires to crucify by apparent prosperity, and to
give you a clear knowledge of the nothingness of the
world by means of the wretchedness attached to all
that is most dazzling therein."
Arrived at the height of grandeur, Madame de
Maintenon experienced that disquietude, that fa-

MARRIAGE OF .blADA_ME DE 3tIAIIVTE.NO.N 127

tigue, which is nearly always the companion of satis-
fied ambition. She was tempted to say with La
Bruyère: "Two thirds of my lire are over; why dis-
turb myself so much about what remains? The
most brilliant fortune is not worth the torment which
I give myself. Thirty years will destroy those giants
of power which were seen to .raise their heads by
dint of violence, aud ail those whom I beheld so
eagerly and by whom I hoped to att,in greatness ; the
greatest of boons, if any boons there be, is repose,
retirement, and a place which would be one's own."
Arrived at an incredible position, the wife of the
greatest ling on earth regretted Scarron's house--
she says it herself--" as the duck regrets its muddy
pond." The spectacle of grandeurs seen too near at
hand no longer dazzled ber eyes. Taught by experi-
ence she said with La Fontaine:-
"Que la Fortune vend ce qu'on croit qu'elle donne," 1
and if ber mind, fatigued with luxury, power, and
glory, was transported back to the days of mediocrity,
it was because she had then neither a marquisate of
Maintenon nor an ai)artment on the saine footing
with that of Louis XIV., while she did possess two
treasures, precious in far other wise, which were
hers in Scarron's dwelling, but which she had lost in
the Versailles of the Sun-King--two treasures
really beautiful, truly inestim,ble, one of which is
called Youth and the other Gaiety.

l How Fortune sells what she is supposed to give I

viii

MADAME DE MAINTENON'S APARTIENT

EOPLE forget quickly in France, and venera-
tion for the past is dwindling, along with every
other sort of veneration. If rime is a destroyer, man
is a still greater one: Tem_pus edax, homo edacior.
Could one believe that the apartment of Madame de
Maintenon, that celebrated apartment in which, dur-
ing thirty years, Louis XIV. passed a great part of
his days and evenings, is now merely a small
museum containing nothing but pictures of the
battles of the French Revolution? There îs not a
single piece of furniture belonging to the time of
Louis XIV.;not a portrait of Madame de Main-
tenon; not a souvenir, not an inscription which
recalls the illustrious companion of the great King
Ignorant and heedless, strangers in out own land,
we spurn with disdainful feet the débris which we
should hold sacred. One might fancy us embar-
rassed by the importance of out annals, the abun-
dance of out glories. We look with indifference at
our monuments and out ruins. How many there
are who visit the palace of Versailles without troub-
125

MADAME DE MAI.NTE2O.N'S APARTltfE.NT 10-9

ling themselves to inquire for the room of Madame
de Maintenon or that of Marie Antoinettel It
would be tiresome and expensive to buy and consult
a catalogue.
It would be well to bring about a reaction against
this forgetfulness of traditions, this neglect of the
æast. History needs Cuviers as nature does. His-
tory is a great drama the decorations and scenes of
which should be revived as well as the personages.
To this life of the dead, movement is necessary, the
animation of resuscitated actors whose faces are
beheld and whose voices listened to. The work of
reconstruction should be complete. M. Theophile
Lavallée bas remarked in the introduction he has
composed to a learned and curious work by M. Le
Roi, 1 that in spite of the attempts that have been
ruade, it may be said that the history of the château
of Versailles bas yet to be written.
"It would be fortunate in the existing period of
revolutions, demolitions, and transformations if it
could be done quickly; for Versailles, that great
creation of Louis XIV., bas been subjected, espe-
cially since the establishment of historical galleries
to such distressing alterations, that it is no longer
recognizable save on the exterior."
I do not deny that the general idea which presided
over the restoration of the palace may bave had a

Curiosités historiques sur Louis X'III., Louis XIV., et Zo«is
'V., by M. Le Roi, curator of the Library of Versailles.

130 TIIE WOMEIY OF VERSAIZZES

certain grandeur from the patriotic point of view.
But considered from that of art and history it was
absolutely bad.
To place the annals of the Revolution and the
Empire in the Sanctuary of Monarchy by divine right
w,s to deprive the dwelling-place of the great King
of all its distinctive features. The image of N«po-
leon is as much out of place at Versailles as the
statue of Louis XIV. would be on the summit of
the Vendôme column.
It must hot be forgotten, however, if one desires
to be just, that Louis-Philippe was far from being
free to act in the marrer of the Versailles restora-
tions. All Europe was pervaded by a revolutionary
influence so violent that the restoration of the
palace of Absolute Monarchy was a very difficult
thing.
At the moment when the work was undertaken,
the rime seemed to be drawing nigh when one might
say with the poet: "The ruins themselves bave per-
ished." .Etiam periere ruince. In his Génie du
C]ristîanisme Chateubriard had written apropos of
Versailles: "This pal:ce which is like a great city
by itself, these m,rble stairways which seem to rise
to the clouds, tlmse statues, these reservoirs, these
woods, are now either crumbling, or covered with
moss, or withered, or overthrown."
Count Alexandre de Laborde relates that a trav-
ellcr who had seen Versailles in all ifs pomp in
1789, at the opening of the States General, was curi-

.MADAME DE MAINTENON'S APARTMENT 131

ous to return there after several years of absence.
Hastening ucross the grass that was growing in the
courts, he entered this dwelling of kings and found
solitude, devastation, sick-beds in the gilded gal-
leries, flocks pasturing in the gardens, statues
thrown down and mutilated. Then plunging into
the adjacent woods he clilnbed the hill of Satory,
and as the last rays of the SUl sadly illumined the
majestic and melaucholy.edifice in the distance, he
repeated this striking passage from the author of Les
Ruines: "Here was the seat of a powerful empire;
these places now so deserted were once animated by
a living multitude ; these walls, vhere now a gloomy
silence reigns, resounded with festivities and shouts
of gladness, and now behold what remains of a vast
domination: a lugubrious skeleton, an obscure and
empty souvenir, a deathlike solitude; the palace
of kings has become the resort of fallow deer! How
has so much glory been eclipsed ?" 1
Such was, let us not forger it, the degradation of
the château of Versailles, when Louis-Philippe, in
spire of the outcries of the modern iconoclasts,
undertook to repair it. The Citizen-King could not
save the palace of the Sun-King otherwise than by
placing it, as one might say, under the tutelage of
republican and imperial glories. To obtain pardon
for an attempt contrary to the destructive interests
of the demagogues, he had to commission a horde of

 Volney, Les tuines.

132 THE WOME.N OF VERSAIZZE8

second-rate artists whose works were much more
remarkable for their number than their merit.
Thence arose this confusion between the most in-
congruous genres; this bizarre assemblage of glories
which seem astonished to find themselves side by
side; this Pantheon which bas the characteristics
of a Babel.
M. Lavallde remarks with much justice: "The
National Museum bas caused the interior of the
château of Versailles fo undergo a complete trans-
formation. The intention of this museum was ex-
cellent, but the execution is not on a level with it.
Undertaken by men little versed in the history of
the seventeenth century, it bas unfortunately ruined
the most interesting parts of the château, and if is
thus that Madame de Maintenon's apartment, now
almost unrecognizable, is occupied by three galleries
of the campaigns of 1793, 1794, 1795.
It is certain now that the persons employed in the
restoration of Versailles did not even know the site
of Madame de Maintenon's apartment. If was o'.
that account that no one thought of placing a por-
trait of this celebrated woman in the rooms she
formerly occupied. They might easily have decided
the point by studying Saint-Simon with moderate
attention. But no one took this trouble. In order
to solve the question it was necessary for M. Le
Roi to publish, in 1848, the opuscule entitled: "In
what part of the château of Versailles was the apart-
ment of Madame de Maintenon situated?" The

MADAME DE MAI_NTE_NO_N'q APARTMENT 133

conclusions arrived at in this work leave no further
room for doubt. The marble staircase, or staircase
of the Queen, ended in a vestibule. At the left of
this vestibule is the hall of the King's guards.  At
the right, opposite this hall, is M«tdune de Main-
tenon's apartment. At present the traces of it are
barely discoverable. In fact, it is hot nlerely en-
tirely stripped of furniture, but it bas been shortened
by the stairway constructed by Louis-Philippe in
order to carry the marble staircase to the attics,
which cuts in two the former apartment of the
King's companion.
This apartment, en suite with that of Louis XIV.,
was composed of four rooms, the two ante-chambers
of which now form but a single room (the hall of
1795). 3 qext to these ante-chambers came Madame
de Maintenon's bedchamber (hall of 1794). a This
room, which bas been subdivided since the establish-
ment of the historical galleries in order to carry the
marble staircase up to the second story, formed in
the rime of Louis XIV. one large room lighted
by three windows. Between the door by which it
was entered and the chimney-piece, now destroyed, 4
was, says Saint-Simon, "the King's armchair against

1 Room No. 120 of the Notice du Musée, by M. Souli.
 Room No. 141 of the Noticoe du Musée.
a Room No. 142 of the Notice du Musée.
« This chimney-piece was at the end of the room, at the right
of the picture representing the combat of Boussu, No. 2295 of the
2Votice.

134 THE VO.ME.N OF VERSAILLES

the wall, a table in front of him, and a folding-
chair around it for the minister who was working.
On the other side of the ehimney-piece a niche of
red damask, an armehair, where Madame de Main-
tenon sat with a small table in front of her. A lit-
tle further off was her bed, in an aleove. 1 Opposite
the foot of the bed a door and rive steps." 2
At home with tho King, says Saint-Simon once
more, "they were eaeh in his armehair, with a
table in front of eaeh, in the two ehimney eorners,
she ou the side uext the bed, the King with his baek
to the wall, on the side of the door of the ante-eham-
ber, and two stools in front of his table, one for the
minister who was eoming to work and the other for
his bag."
In fine, there was nothing splendid about this
apartment. "I do not know," says M. Lavall6e,
"if the ehambermaid of some parvenu of our own
days would be content with this unique ehamber
where Louis XIV. came to work, and where Mt-
dame de Maintenon are, slept, dressed herself, and
reeeived the whole court, and whieh every one en-
tered as she said, as if into a ehureh. For that

 Madame de MMntenon's bed was in the place now occupied
by the stucco stMrcuse, built under the reign of Louis-Philippe,
which continues the mrble stuircse. The rive steps which led
ta the forth nd lst room of the aprtment (grand cbinet of
Madume de Mintenon -- room No. 143 of the _hotice) have been
removed, the flooring of the ltter hving been lowered.
 Introduction to Curiosités historiques on Louis XIII., Louis
XIV., and Louis XV., by M. Le Roi.

.MADAME .DE .MAI1VTElgO1V ' S APART.ME1VT 185

matter, the princes, the princesses, even the King
himself, were not more commodiously lodged.
Everything had been sacrificed to pomp, brilliancy,
and display in this magnificent château. Louis
XIV. was perpetually on the stage and playing his
part as king uninterruptedly, but amidst all these
paintings, gildings, marbles, and splendors not a
single one of the conveniences of our days was to be
had; one froze in these immense rooms, these grand
galleries, these chambem open on every side."
Now that we know the apartment of the companion
of Louis XIV., let us glance at the existence she led
there. She generally rose between six and seven
o'clock and went af once fo M«tss, where she received
communion three or four times a week. Her day
was spent in good works, writing, and in visits to
Saint-Cyr. The King calne regularly to see her
every day between rive and six in the evening
and remained until ten, the hour when he went to
supper.
Madame de Maintenon's retinue was very modest.
The King gave her 48,000 livres annually, plus a
New Year's gift of 12,000 livres, nearly all of which
sum was devoted to ahns. Her old servant Manon,
who had been her companion in days of adversity,
stîll remained with her, and she had also a few silent
and respectful domestics. Her existence may be
described briefly as a lire of abnegation, constraint,
and obedience. Her rank which placed her between
private persons ard queens being indeterminate if

136 THE WOMEV OF VERSAILLES

would bave been difficult for ber to bave lived habit-
ually amid the etiquette of the court. Hence she
seldom left ber apartment. Voltaire says that ber
elevation, so far as she was concerned, was simply a
retreat.
While Madame de Maintenon thus withdraws
into herself, the court around ber is full of commo-
tion. The marble staircase at the foot of which is
the apartment of the Dauphin, and which leads to
those of the Dauphiness, Madame de Maintenon and
Louis XIV., is incessantly crowded with those men
"who are masters ¢  their gestures, their eyes, their
faces, who bide their evil functions, smile at their
enemies, disguise their passions. ''1 They ascend
this staircase to attend the levee and the couchee of
the King. They pass through the hall of the guards
(room :No. 120 of the xVotice du Musée), the King's
ante-chamber (room :No. 121), and then into the
CA.ambre des Bassans, where they await the mon-
arch's rising.
The Chambre des Bassans,  so called, says Féli-
bien, because several pictures by Bassano were hung
above the doors and the wainscoting, is the waiting-
room which precedes the bedchamber of Louis XIV.

1 La Bruyère, La Cour.
a Room No. 123 of the _hotice du Musée. Under Louis XIV.
this hall, which at present forms the salon of the OEil-de-Boeuf,
was divided into two rooms : the first was that of the Bassans, the
second served as the King's bedchamber until 1691, when he
installed himself in the succeeding room (No. 124) to remain there
until his death.

MADAME DE 3IAINTENO2V'S APARTMENT 137

It bas several different entries: the familiar entry
for the princes, the grand entry for the great crown
officials, the first entry for those whose duties entitle
them to corne in, the entry for the officials of the
King's chamber. The ceremonia.1 is regulated in
the most precise manner. The two leaves of the
folding door are never opened except for the Dauphin
and the princes of the blood. The door opens for
each person admitted and closes at once behind
him.
"One must gently scratch the doors of the cham-
ber, the ante-chambers, and the cabinets, hot rudely
strike them. Moreover, if one wishes to pass out
when the doors are closed, it is not permissible to
open them one's self, but they must be opened by
the usher." 1
Louis XIV. rises at eight o'clock and says his
prayers. Then he steps out of the balustrade sur-
rounding his bed and says : "To the council." He
works with his ministers until half-past twelve.
Afterwards, escorted by the princes, the princesses,
the officials, and the great nobles, he goes to Mass,
crossing the Gallery des Glaces, where any one may
sec him, present a petition, and even speak to him.
He passes through the salons of War, Apollo, Mer-
cury, Mars, Diana, Venus, and Abundance  to reach

1 Etat de France in 1694.
« These salons, which form whut ure culled the grund .part-
ments of the King, ure numbered 112 111 110 109, 108 107 106,
in the 2gotiee du 2gusée.

I8 THE VOMEIV OF FERSAILLES

the chapel, 1 which rises from the ground floor fo the
second story. The altar and the pulpit, in which
Bossuer, Bourdaloue, and Massillon preached by
turns, are below. The upper part is occupied by
galleries.
"The nobles form a vast circle af the foot of the
altar, where they remain standing with their backs
turned fo the priest and the sacred mysteries, and
their faces raised towards their King, who is seen
kneeling on a rostrum, and on whom all their minds
and hearts seem fo be fixed. One cannot fail fo see
a kind of subordination in this custom, for the peo-
ple seem to adore the princes and the prince fo adore
God." 
After Mass the King dines, usually on few dishes,
and alone in his chamber. At two o'clock he shoots
in the park, walks in the gardens, or hunts the deer
either on horseback or in an open carriage. Toward
rive or six o'clock he repairs as we have said al-
ready, fo Madame de Maintenon's apartment and

* This chapel must hOt be confounded.with the existing chapeli
which was hOt inaugurated until 1710. The Salon of Hercules
(No. 106 of the Notice), which now serves as entrance to the grand
apartments, was the chapel from 1682 to 1710. That part of the
palace containing the Salon of Hercules and the vestibule below it,
unites the north wing to the centre. The chapel, which combined
the height of the ground floor and that of the first story, was on
this site. A picture, representing Dungeau receiving investiture as
grand toaster of the order of St. Lazurus, reproduces its interior.
This picture is in room 9 of the Notice du 2fusée, and is numbered
164.

 La Bruyère, La Cour.

MADAME DE MAI_TE202', APARTME2T 139

there he works again with his ministers during a
great part of the evening. He leaves her towards
nine or ten o'clock and then goes either to the llay
or to the Apartment.
What is designated by this title is the reunion of
the whole court in the apartments of the King. The
Mercure galant of 1682 gives , curious description
of these soirées which were established in the first
year of the definitive installation of Louis XIV. at
Versailles. "The King," says the Mercure, "per-
toits admission to his grand apartment of Versailles
on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of each week,
and all sorts of gaines to be played there from six
in the evening until ten, and these days are called
Apartment days."
People ascend the great staircase of the King,
or of the Ambassadors, that magnificent staircase
decorated by the sculptures of Coysevox, and the
paintings of Lebrun and Van der Meulen. 1 They
enter the salon of Abundance, u so-called because
there are bas-reliefs representing Abundance over
the marble door. Refreshment tables are laid in this
salon, which is adorned with pictures by Carracci,
Guido, and Paul Veronese. Then they pass into the
salon of Venus, filled with splendid furniture, and

1 The stuircase of the Ambussadors, also called grand staircase
of the King, was in the north wing, and led to the grand apart-
ments of Louis XIV. It was destroyed in 1750 in consequence of
the alterations ruade in the apartments of Louis XV.
a Room 106 of the Notice du Musée.

140 THE WOME2V OF VEzrlSAILLE8

then into that of Diana, where the billiard tables
are, and where orange trees are blooming in silver
tubs. The salon of Mars, where one may admire
six of Titian's portraits, Jesus and the Tilgrims to
'ramaus, by Veronese, The IVamily of JDarius at the
feet of Alexander, by Lebrun, is the room where they
t)ly. In the middle of it, on a table covered with
green velvet, there is a trou-madame of inlaid wood
sm'rounded by hangings of red velvet fringed with
gold. There are also tables for card-playing and
for gaines of chance. The next room is the salon
of Mercury, where the state bed is, and pictures by
Carracci, Titian, and Van Dyck.
Then cornes the magnificent salon of Apollo,
which is the Throne room. At the end of it is a
pl,tform covered by a Persian carpet with a gold
ground on which stands a silver throne eight fee
high. Four statues of infants carrying flower bas-
kets support the seat and the back, which are covered
with red velvet. Domenichino's JDavld, Rubens'
Tomyris, and pictures by Guido and Van Dyck
tdorn this salon, which is that where Louis XIV.
gives audience to foreign ambassadors, and which on
Apartment days is devoted to music and dancing.
On those duys there is great stir and animation.
Diumonds and jewels sparkle in the dazzling lustre
of chaudeliers. People are ecstatic over the resplen-
dent toilettes of the most beautiful women in France.
A perfume of elegance and aristocracy exhales from
amidst the lights and flowers.

MADAME DE MAINTENON 'S APARTMENT 141

"Some choose one gaine and some another. Still
others only desire to watch the playing, or to walk
about and admire the assembly and the richness of
these grand apartments. Although they are filled,
one sees none but men and women of high tank.
People are entirely free to converse there ....
Respect, however, prevents them from raising their
voices too high, so that the noise one hears is not
disagreeable .... The King lays aside his gran-
deur in order to play with many of the assembly who
bave never had such an honor. He goes from one
game to another. He will hot allow any one to rise
nor interrupt the gaine when he approaches." 1
The reunion breaks up at ten o'clock, the hour
when Louis XIV. takes his supper, usually au grand
couvert, with the royal ftmily in the room called the
King's ante-chamber. 2 Here is the nave, a piece of
jeweller's work in silver gilt shaped like a dismasted
vessel. In it are kept the King's napkins between
scented cushions. Everybody who passes in front
of the nave, even the princesses, must salure it, as
they do the King's bed when entering the bed-
chamber.
Supper ended, Louis XIV. enters his chamber,
where he receives his private family, his brother,
and his children, with their husbands or wives. He
chats until the couchee, which takes place toward

a Iercure galant. December, 1682.
2 loom 121 of the Notice du Iusée.

142 THE WO.ME.N OF V.E.RSAIZZES

midnight, or one o'clock af latest. The greatest
nobles strive for the honor of holding the candlestick
while the sovereign undresses. As Saint-Simon
remarks, itis  distinction, a fayot which is counted
on, so skilful is Louis XIV. in making something
out of nothing.
The task of the courtiers is ended for to-day.
The lights are extinguished. All subsides into
drkness and silence. At last it is the hour for
repose. -But one sleeps little or sleeps badly in
this region which La Bruyère speaks of, "which is
some forty-eight degrees of elevation from the pole
and more than eleven hundred leagues by sea from
the Iroquois and the Hurons." Here the "joys are
visible but false, and vexations hidden but real."
The night's slumber is disturbed by reminiscences of
yesterday, and by anxieties for to-morrow, and one
forgets neither his ambitions nor his cares, because
whether sleeping or waking one thinks of nothing
but his own interests.

IX

THE MARQUISE DE CAYLUS

MIDST the court of Versailles, now grown
old and saddened, one sees here and there
young, smiling, luminous faces, fresh and lively
countenances which brighten up the palace, eyes
that sparkle, gracious, intelligent, and sympathetic
smiles, sweet and persuasive voices, enchanting
women whose charm sheds somewhat of light and
poesy over ceremonial gravities and the weariness
of etiquette.
Louis XIV. loved youth. As to Madame de
Maintenon, who had never had any children and who
had, nevertheless, the qualities necessary to make
ber a good mother, she ruade herself amends for the
cruelty of fate by watching with maternal solicitude
over the children whom she cherished. It was thus
she educated ber niece à la mode de Bretagne, the
pretty and graceful Mademoiselle de Murçay-Vil-
lette, a typical French woman, gay, satirical, even a
trifle caustic, animated, amusing, captivating and
captivated.
She merits special mention in the galaxy of Ver-
143

144 THE WOME1V OF VEtSAILLES

sailles, this little magician who handled the pen as
well as she did the fan, this clever woman who has
had the honor of being cited by Sainte-Beuve as the
model of those exquisite qualities which are summed
up in the word urbanity, this enchantress to whom
Madame de Maintenon said: "You know very well
how to dispense with pleasures, but pleasures cannot
dispense with you."
Marguerite de Murçay-Villette, Marquise de Cay-
lus, was born in Poitou, in the year 1673. Benja-
min de Valois, Marquis de Villette, had espoused
Arthémise d'Aubigné, daughter of the famous Théo-
dore Agrippa d'Aubigné, the soldier-poet, the au-
stere and imperious Calvinist, the haughty and
satirical companion of Henry IV., Théodore Agrippa
d'Aubigné, whose son was the father of Madame
de Maintenon. The little de Murçay-Villett¢ was
seven years old, and her father, who was in the uavy,
was on duty when her aunt à la mode de Bretagne,
Madame de Maintenon, resolved to convert hr to
Catholicism.
This was the moment when Louis XIV. was con-
verting the Huguenots of his realm with their will
or against it. The child was taken away frein her
family and conveyed to Saint-Germain.
"At first I cried a good deal," she says in ber
Souvenirs, "but the next day I found the King's
Mass so beautiful that I consented to be¢.me a
Catholic on condition that I should hear it every
day and that no one should whip me. That îs all

TH.E MARQUISE DE CAYLU,.q 145

the controversy that was employed and the only
abjuration that I ruade."
M. de Murçay-Villette was indignant at first, but
he ended by growing milder and embracing the
Catholic religion himself. As the King was con-
gratulating him, he responded: "This is the only
occasion in my life when it bas hot been my object
to please Your Majesty."
Madalne de Maintenon, who had the vocation and
the aptitudes of a teacher, took pleasure in occupy-
ing herself with ber niece.
"I was brought up," says the latter, "with a care
for which Madame de Maintenon cannot be too much
praised, lothing happened at court without ber
causing me to make such reflections on it as I was
capable of, approving me when I thought justly, and
correcting me when I thought badly. My days
were spent among masters, reading, and honest and
well-regulated amusements; my memory was culti-
vated by obliging me to learn verses by heart, and
as I was under the necessity of giving an account of
my reading or of any sermon I heard, I was forced
to pay attention. In addition to this I had to write
a letter every day either to a member of my family
or some other person whom I might choose, and this
I had to take to Madame de Maintenon every even-
ing that she might either approve or correct it,
according as it was well or ill done."
At the age of thirteen Mademoiselle de Villette
was already charming, and her hand was asked for

146 THE WOMEN OF VE.RSAILLE,-q

by the greatest nobles, M. de Roquelaure and M.
de Boufflers. Madame de Maintenon thought she
ought hot to accept such brilliant offers for ber
niece.
"My niece is not a sufficiently good match for
you," she said to M. de Bouffiers. "Still, I am not
insensible to the honor you pay me. I will not give
ber to you, but in future I shall consider you as my
nephew."
The woman who used this language often dis-
played what may be called an ostentatious modesty.
She rather gloried in making a commonplace mar-
riage for her charming niece, and selected for her a
husband devoid of merit, fortune, or command, M.
de Tubières, Marquis de Caylus. The young wife
was only thirteen years old. The King gave her
only a moderate allowance and a collar of pearls
worth ten thousand écus.
But shortly after ber marriage she had an apart-
ment at Versailles, where ber beauty did hot rail
to excite enthusiasm. Saint-Simon, who did hot
admire too readily, exclaims concerning ber: "Never
was there a visage so intelligent, so affecting, never
such grace and wit, never such gaiety and amuse-
ment, never was a creature more attractive."
The eulogies of the Abbé de Choisy are hot less
expressive: "Mirth and laughter beamed around
ber; ber mind was still more amiable than ber vis-
age; . . . and if ber natural gaiety had permitted
hr to rctrench certain little airs rather too coquet-

Ttt.E _IARQUI81 1)1 CAYLUS 147

tish, which all her innocence could hot justify, she
would bave been a perfect person."
Madame de Caylus was one of the heroines of
those representations of Esther which continue to
be one of the most pleasing episodes of the second
half of the great reign.
In 1685 Madame de Maintenon had founded at
Saint-Cyr, quite close to Versailles, a bouse for the
gratuitous education of one hundred and fifty noble
but poor young girls. Religion and literature were
both in high esteem there. Some of the pupils of
the senior class- the blues- had declaimed Cina,
Andromaque, and Ip]dgénie, in prescnce of their
companions. But it was soon perceived that they
were but too well inclined to the business, especially
for the recitation of the love sccnes. Madame de
Maintenon wrote to Racine: "Our little ones bave
just been playing your Andromaque, and have played
it so well that they shall never play it again, nor
any other of your pieces."
But though tragedy was proscribed, poetry was
by no means forsaken. Madame de Maintenon, who
admired Racine greatly, begged him to compose a
sort of moral and historical poem for Saint-Cyr from
which human love should be rigorously excluded.
This was in 1688. Racine was nearly fifty, and had
renounced the theatre twelve years before, being
then in the plenitude of genius and inspiration.
Religious scruples had driven him from the stage,
and he had offered to God the most painful sacrifice

148 THE WOMEY OF VERSAILJLES

possible to an artist: that of his renown. This
great poet had condemned himself to silence, and
with his own hands taken the coursers from the
triumphal chariot which drew him through the
starry spheres of art. He trembled with joy when
he saw a means of reconciling his former inclina-
tions with the sentiments which had turned him
away from them. The poet and the devotee were
at last to corne to terms. _Esther was the fruit of
their alliance, that exquisite work which is akin
both to tr,gedy and elegy, that poem full of tender-
ness and tears which is worthy of the poet of whom
lais son said: "My father was a man all senti-
ment, all feeling." Aroused as it were from a long
slumber, Racine had drawn from this repose a fresh-
ness of impressions, a new originality. "At fifteen
years old," says M. Michelet, "Madame de Caylus
saw the birth of 'sther, inhaled its first perfume,
and understood its spirit so well that she seemed, by
the emotion of ber voice, to add somewhat to it."
It was not originally intended that she should
play any part in it. But one day when Racine was
about to read several of the scenes to Madame de
Maintenon, she began to declaim them in so moving
a style that the enthusiastic poet composed a pro-
logue, that of t)iety, expressly for her.
The first representation was given at Saint-Cyr,
January 26, 1689. The vestibule of the dormitories,
situated on the second floor of the pupils' great stair-
case, was divided into two parts, one for the stage,

THE .MA1(2U18E .DE CAYLUS 149

and the other for the spectators. Two amphitheatres
had been erected at the side of the room, a small one
for the ladies of the community, and a larger one for
the pupils. The smallest children, the reds, were
on the highest row of seats, then came the greens,
the yellows, and at the bottom of all the oldest girls,
the blues, all wearing ribbons of their class colors.
The play was given in the dwtime, but all the win-
dows had been closed, and the stairways, passages,
and the hall itself glittered with lights in crystal
chandeliers. Between the two amphitheatres were
seats for the King, Mdme de Maintenon, and
several spectators admitted as an exceptional favor
to the honor of applmding Esther.
Louis XIV. arrived at three o'clock in the after-
noon, and the piece began a few minutes later.
Mdame de Caylus recited her prologue in an affect-
ing and melodious voice which excited a buzz of
enthusiastic emotion in the noble audience. Her
seventeen years, her pure tones, her tender and ideal
beauty, ruade her seem like an angel. From the first
lines of the prologue success was assure& Louis
XIV. felt himself rejuvenated. Here at last was a
diversion worthy of the great King. How easily
one pictures to himself this half-pious, half-profane
animation; these naïve and charming young girls
who say a Veni Çreator before they go on the stage;
these improvised actresses who are electrified by the
music, the poetry, the footlights, and, still more
than ail these, by the presence of him who is their

150 THE WOME_N OF VERSAILLE8

protector, their earthly Providence! The greatest
of kings in the house; the greatest of poets in the
greenroom; actresses who vie with each other in
tenderness and grace; verses altogether noble, ideal,
and harmonious; choirs whose celestial melody is
the hymn of prayer, the canticle of divine love; a
splendid 3lise en scèae ; admirable decorations; Per-
sian costumes glitte'ing with the crown jewels, and,
still mo'e alluring than even the prestige of the
throne and the beams of the royal sun, the charm of
youth, the freshness of imaginations, the sweet and
penetrating poetry of the souls of young girls, 
what a spectacle, what an intoxication! Est$er is
played by M;demoiselle de Veilhan, Élise by 5Iade-
moiselle de Maisonfort, Assuérus by Mademoiselle
Lastic, Aman by 5Iademoiselle d'Abancourt, Zarès by
Mademoiselle de 5Iarsilly, ttydaspe by Mademoiselle
de Mornay. The rôle of Mardoc£ée is played to
perfection by Mademoiselle de Glapion, that young
person who caused Racine to say: "I have found a
_]Iardoc]ée whose voice goes to one's very heart."
The poet is behind the scenes acting as stage man-
ager. Mademoiselle de Maisonfort, who is fright-
ened, has had a molnentary failure of memory.
When she returns to the greenroom, he says to ber:
"Ah ! Mademoiselle, here is a piece spoiled." The
beautiful young girl at once begins to cry; Racine
consoles her and pulling out his handkerchief wipes
ber eyes, as one would do for an infant. She returns
to the stage and plays like a finished actress, tter

THE [ARQUISE DE CAYLUS 151

eyes are somewhat red still, and Louis XIV., whom
nothing escapes, whispers: "The little canoness has
been crying."
Mad,me de Muintenon can hardly conceal her oy
at the success of her de,r children. Louis XIV.,
touched and enraptured, grants his pprobation, the
nmst precious of rewards, to the poet and the
tresses, and vhen the represent,tion is ended, Racine,
"who loves God as he formerly loved his mis-
tresses, ''1 hastens to the chapel and falls on his
knees in a transport of gratitude.
The succeeding representations are still more
brilliant than the first. Madame de Caylus takes
the part of Estimer and surpasses herself in it. A
childish divertisement, as R,cine said himself,
tracts the eager attention of t-he whole court. The
favor of an invitation is more desired and nmre dif-
ficult to obtain than that of a ]ourney to Marly.
Louis XIV. enters first, and stands at the threshold,
cane in hand, until all the guests are in the hall.
Madme de S6vign6, who is admitted to the repre-
sentation of February 19, 1689, cannot contain her
joy. She sits next to Marshal de Bellefonds, to
whom she communic,tes her enthusiastic impres-
sions in an undertone. The marshal rises between
the acts and goes to tell the King how pleased he is.
"I am near a lady," he adds, "who is very worthy
of having seen Estimer."

_Madame de SSvigné, Letter of February 7, 1689.

152 THE WOMEIY OF VERSAILLES

At the close of the performance Louis XIV.
addresses a few words to several of the spectators.
tIe stops in front of Madame de Sévigné and speaks
kindly to ber.
The Marquise, quite proud of such an honor, has
mentioned this conversation in one of her letters:
"The King said to nae, ' Madanae, I ana sure you
have been pleased. Racine has a great deal of
genius.' Without showing surprise I answer, ' Sire,
he has a great deal; but, truly, these young people
have a great deal also; they enter into the subject
as if they had never done anything else.' ' Ah! as
for that, itis true.' -- And then His Majesty naoved
away, leaving nae the object of envy."
Is hot that last word characteristic? The naost
superior wonaan in the kingdona is beside herself
with joy because the King bas spoken with her.
What a prestige had this inconaparable naonarch,
the least mark of attention from whom made the
whole court envious !
The success of Esther had been too great. Criti-
cisna, motived either by piety or jealousy, soon began
to attack these representations which had been so
brilliant. The genius of the poet and the talent of
the actresses had tobe recognized of course, whether
willingly or unwillingly. The criticism was aimed
at other points. It was said that this blending of
the cloister and the theatre was nota good thing,
that the self-love, and perhaps even the coquettish
instincts of the young girls, would be over-excited

THE .MARQUISE .DE CAYLU 153

by such divertisements. Bourdaloue and Bossuer
had been present at the representations as if to mark
their approval in that manner. But Madame de
Maintenon's new director, Godez-Desmaretz, Bishop
of Chartres, decided against these ostentatious exhi-
bitions of the pupils of Saint-Cyr. Hence they were
put an end fo, and Athalie, which had been called
for after the success of Esther, and already learned
by the young la(lies of SaintCyr, was given, in 1690,
without display, without scenes, decorations, or cos-
tumes, in the blue class-room, with only the King,
Madame de Maintenon, and some dozen others as
spectators.
The representations of 'sther were hot all that
was considered too worldly. The young woman
who had been so much admired in it, Madame de
Caylus, did not remain long in fayot at court. Her
wit and gaiety, the freedom of ber manners and
speech, were too excessive hot to entail disgrace.
This witty and charming Marquise, who was hot
yet twenty, was devout at her prayers. Like the
majority of exceptionally intelligent women, like
the Longuevilles, the Montespans, the Svignés, she
was divided between God and the world. But, un-
fortunately, the world got much the larger share.
With Madame de Caylus pleasures took precedence
over prayers. Her mobile, caustic, somewhat super-
ficial character did hot incline to the austerities
of a profound devotion.
There was the stuff for a great actress in ber

104 Ttt. WOM.IV 0. V.ER,AILL.8

rather than a vocation to religion, and when she
saw the court assuming the manners of the cloister
she found herself a trille out of place. Married to
a man of no merit, who was always with his regi-
ment, on campaigns or at the frontier, she easily
consoled herself for his absence, and contracted a
liaison with the Duke de Villeroy, which ruade a
scandal. Fond of gossip, if hOt of calumny, hot
afraid to provoke enmity for the sake of a witty
speech, accustomed to the society and the mischiev-
ous pranks of the Duchess de Bourbon, who, with
less wit, had all the satiric tendencies of her mother,
Madame de Montespan, Madame de Caylus was
inclined to scoff at everything. That was a sort
of pastime which Louis XIV. knew not how to
pardon. This audacious young person had been
imprudent enough to say, in speaking of the court:
"This place is so dull that itis like an exile to live
here."
The King took her at her word, and forbade ber
to appear again in the place she round so tiresome.
She seemed to him affected and coquettish. He
thought ber too keen, too acute, too ready to use
that weapon of ridicule which is so deadly when
wielded by the little hand of a pretty woman. He
was even of the opinion that this futile education
did hot greatly redound to the credit of Madame
de Maintenon, who on ber part had no interest in
keeping near the King a yomg woman who might
injure Saint-Cyr. Hence the disgrace of Madame

Ttt MARQUISE DE CAYZ, US 155

de Caylus was of long duration. She remained away
from the court for thirteen years as a sort of pen-
ance, and only obtained forgiveness through good
behavior, submission, and piety. But the pardon
was complete.
She reappeared st Versailles, February 10, 1707,
st the King's supper, and received a cordial welcome.
She was only thirty-three, had been a widow for
about two years, and did not intend to marry again.
Beautiful as an angel and more charming than ever,
she entirely regained the favor of Madame de Main-
tenon, whose assiduous companion she became, and
remained st the palace until the death of Louis XIV.
After that she returned to Paris, where she occupied
a small house contiguous to the Luxembourg gardens.
There she gave suppers to great nobles and men of
leaxning, and her salon was an intellectual centre,
where the traditions of the seventeenth century were
perpetuated into the first years of the eighteenth.
There she died in 1729, aged only fifty-six.
Some months earlier she had written, under the
modest title of Souvenirs, the brief and witty memoirs
which will make her name immortal. Her friends,
enchanted by her lively wit, had long entreated ber
to write out, not for the public, but for them, the
anecdotes which she related so well. In the end she
acquiesced, and committed to paper certain incidents,
certain portraits. What a treasure are these Souve-
nirs, so fluently written, so unpretentious, with neither
dates nor chronological order, but upon which all his-

156 THE iVOMEN 02' VER8AILLI8

torians bave drawn for more than a centuryl 1 How
much is contained in this little book, which teaches
more in a few lines than interminable works in many
volumes! How feminine itis, and how French!
One readily understands Voltaire's liking for these
charming Souvenirs. Who ever applied better than
Madame de Caylus the famous precept : "Go lightly,
mortals ; don't bear on too hard"?
She belonged to that race of spontaneous writers
who produce artistic works without knowing it, ust
as M. Jourdain wrote prose, and who do not even
suspect that they possess that chier attribute of style
naturalness. What pure, what ready, wit! What
good humor, what unconstraint, what delightful ease
What a charming series of portraits, each more life-
like, more animated, still better than al1 the othersl
These little miniatures due to the brush of a woman
of the world are better worth studying than many a
picture or fresco.

 The Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus, which were never com-
pleted remained in manuscript during her lire and long after her
death. They were first printed at Amsterdam in 1770 with a
preface and notes attributed to Voltaire.

X

MDAM DE MAINTElçOlç AND THE GENTLErOMEN
OF SAINT-CYR

HE figure of Madame de Maintenon is framed
in the house of Saint-Cyr like that of Mademoi-
selle de La Vallière in the Carmelite convent of
rue Saint-Jacques. We see the spouse of Louis XIV.
in her true light when she is surrounded by the
nuns and the pupils of an asylum where the idea of
religion is blended with that of nobility, and which
makes room for both earth and heaven, for the world
and for God. Saint-Cyr is the veritable offspring
of this wife who was nota mother; it is here that a
heart far less barren, less egotistic than is believed,
expends what remains to her of emotional strength
and tenderness.
In this pious abode Madame de Maintenon experi-
ences the charm of compassion, edification, melan-
choly. From this point she contemplates, through
the mists of the past, her own eventful and astonish-
ing career. Here she listens with emotion to the
remote echo of the stormy floods which beat against
ber cradle, troubled her youth, and which even now

158 THE JVO.MEV OF VERSA1LLES

often disturb ber age. When she sees so many
dowerless young girls, she recalls the time when she
was poor and forsaken in spire of ber illustrious
birth. She reflects on what intelligence, ability, and
courage the grand-daughter of Théodore Agrippa
d'Aubigné needed in order to struggle against pov-
erty. She remembers the snares laid for ber by the
spirit of evil, the illusions of the girl and the young
woman, from which ber lofty intelligence and good
sense preserved ber; she summarizes the lessons
suggested by her experience. In this chapel whose
silence is undisturbed by the worldly murmur of
courtiers, more occupied with the King than with
God, she reflects on all the intrigues, vanities, and
deceptions of the court. In this calm abode, where
monastic gravity is softened by the graces of child-
hood and youth, she reflects on the morning of lire
and its evening, on the cradle and the grave. For
Madame de Maintenon there is a sort of living
antithesis between Versailles and Saint-Cyr: Ver-
sailles is agitation, Saint-Cyr repose. Versailles is
the world with its to:ments, fo-lhé, and ambitions;
Saint-Cyr is the vestibule of heaven. Hence, how
greatly she prefers her beloved convent to the marble
court, the apartments of the King, the Gallery of
Mirrors, the splendors of the finest palace of the
universe !
"Long live Saint-Cyr !" she exclaims ; "long live
SaintCyr! In spire of its defects one is better off
there than in any other place in the world ....

MADAME DE MAI.NTE.NO.N 159

When SaintCyr is in question, I am always de-
lighted." She is quieted and consoled when she
enters ber dear asylum. "When I see the door close
after me on entering this solitude whence I never
depart without pain, I am full of joy." And when
she returns te Versailles, she feels a contraction of the
heart, a kind of anguish.
"I experience," she says again, "a sentiment of
horror at the sight of Versailles; what is called the
world is there ; itis its centre ; there all the passions
are in action : interest, ambition, envy, and pleasure."
Madame de Maintenon's preference for Saint-Cyr,
which is her work, her creation, the very symbol of
her thought is, moreover, very easily explained. It
is there, in fact that ber character, with its love of
domination, her high intelligence, ber talent for writ-
ing and speaking, ber aptitude for government, are
manifested. It must be owned that it is net religion
alone which makes her prefer the convent te the
palace. At Versailles she is constrained, incom-
moded, she obeys; the rays of the royal sun, though
paler than they were, have still a prestige and a
brilliancy which intimidate ber. At Saint-Cyr she
is free, she commands and governs. Like Coesar,
who said he would prefer te be the chief in a village
than the second in Rome, Madame de Maintenon
finds it pleasanter te be the superior of nuns than
te be the companion of a king. At Versailles she
possibly regrets the crown and the ermine mantle
which are lacking te her. She has no need of them

10 THE WOME_TV OF VERSAILLE8

st Saint-Cyr, for there her sovereignty is uncontested.
Her lightest words are accepted as oracles. Her
letters, read with respectful emotion in presence of
the whole community, are universally admired. The
inmates or the pupils to whom they are addressed
boast of them as titles of glory. Madame de Mainte-
non is almost the queen of France. She is absolutely
queen of Saint-Cyr.
The educational house of Saint-Cyr, which was
opened August 2, 1686, contained two hundred and
fifty young girls of noble birth who had no fortunes.
During thirty years this religious establishment was
Madame de Maintenon's principal occupation. She
went there every other day at least, arriving some-
times by six o'clock in the morning, going from class
to class, combing and dressing the little girls, edify-
ing and instructing the larger ones, and preferring
ber rôle as teacher to all the amusements and splen-
dors of Versailles. lIothing that related to Saint-
Cyr seemed fo ber troublesome or disagreeable.
"Our ladies," said she, "are children who will not
be able for a long while to rule others; I offer
myself to serve them: I shall have no diflàculty in
being their steward, their woman of business, and
with all my heart their servant, providing that my
cares put them in a condition to dispense with me."
The ladies of Saint Louis, as the inmates of the
establishment of Saint-Cyr were called, had an hour's
recreation in the middle of the day, which they
usually spent around a large table, conversing freely

MAZ)A3dE, Z)E 3dAI_NTE_N01 161

while employed in needlework. Madame de Main-
tenon loved to come to these recreations. She
brought ber work, and indulged in those familiar
talks of hers, at once so witty and so edifying, whose
instructive charm was so well appreciated by the
community.
In September, 1686, the King, after recovering from
an illness, went to visit Saint-Cyr. The ladies chanted
the Te Deum, the Domine salvum fac regem, and
Lulli's hymn: Grand Dieu, Sauvez le roi, Vengez le
roi, the air of which has been borrowed from France
by the English for their God save the 1ring. Louis
XIV. was pleased with these fresh faces, these hearts
filled with grateful emotion. When he returned to
his carriage, he said kindly to Madame de Maintenon :
"I thank you, Madame, for all the pleasure you bave
given me."
In 1689 he said to the ladies of Saint Louis: ci
ara not eloquent enough to exhort you very well;
but I hope that by dint of repeating to you the
motives of this foundation, I shall convince and per-
suade you to be always faithful to it. I will spare
neither my visits nor my words, little calculated as I
think them to produce this beautiful result."
"What should give pleasure to Your Majesty,"
replied Madame de Maintenon, "is that most of the
young persons who will leave here will live and die
in innocence, and that a number of them will conse-
erate their whole lives to God."
"Ah!" said the King, "if I could only give as

16 THE WOME_N OF VERSAILLE8

many such to God as I bave torn from Him by my
bad example !"
For Louis XIV. Saint-Cyr was a consolation and
an expiation, a ptriotic and religious work, a homage
to God nd to France. "Wht pleases me in the
ldies of Saint-Cyr," said he, "is that they love the
St,te although they hate the world: they are good
sisters and good Frenchwomen."
In order to gin the blessing of heaven on his
rms he recommended himself to the angels of Saint-
Cyr at the beginning of every cmpaign, thinking
that their prayers must be powelul in pradise. On
returning from the siege of Mons, in April, 1691, he
repaired to the holy asylum where his soul round
repose from the emotions of politics and war. One
of the young girls reproached him for having exposed
himself too much during the siege. "I did nothing
but wht I ought," he returned.- "But the welfare
of the Stte," said she, "depends on the preservtion
of your person."m,, Places like mine," replied the
King, "never remain empty: some one else would
fill it better thon I."
As to Madame de Maintenon, ber devotion to
Saint-Cyr amounted to enthusiasm. "Sanctify your
house," said she to the ladies of Sint Louis, "and
through your house the whole kingdom. I would
give my blood to be ble to communicte the educa-
tion of Sint-Cyr to all religious houses which bring
up young girls. In comparison with Saint-Cyr every-
thing else is foreign to me, and my nearest relatives

.MADAME DE MAI_,"I"E.: 0¥ 163

are less dear to me than the least one of the good
daughters of the community."
She is like the queen bee. Iqot content with
prayer, she labors. Her pen and ber needle are alike
active. While chatting over her embroidery, she
gives veritable sermons which would hot be unwor-
thy of great preachers. She delineates in excellent
style, not merely the portraits of nuns, but those of
mothers of familles. "I know some," she says, " who
are esteemed, respected, and admired by everybody ;
their husbands are so charmed with them that they
say with admiration,' I find everything in my wife.
She serves me as steward, manager, and governess
for my children.'"
Speaking to the novices, she exclaims: "Consider
that there is no one on earth so happy as a good
sister, nor any one so unhappy and despicable as
a bad one. To be silent, to surfer, not to make
others surfer, to love God with a heart filled with all
He desires that we should love, to endure the imper-
fections of others but not our own, to be neither
pleased nor discouraged with ourselves, to rely on
nothing but the cross, and to yield nothing to self-
love under whatever pretext of innocent consolation,
m that is the kingdom of God which commences here
below. You will bave no happiness save in yielding
yourselves unreservedly to God and in bearing the
yoke of religion with a simple courage which will
make if light and easy."
These young girls whose hearts are so innocent,

164 TH.E IVO.ME1V OF VERSAILL.E8

whose voices so fresh and pure, these melodious and
affecting chants, this poetry of prayer, this perfume
of incense, are ail entrancing to Madame de Mainte-
non. "Pray without ceasing," she says to the ladies
of Saint Louis. "Pray while you are walking, writ-
ing, spinning, working .... Some time ago I saw
our demoiselles folding the linen with an activity
which left them no leisure to think or to feel dull.
They were silent for a moment, and then they began
to sing hymns. I admired the innocence of their
life and your happiness in averting so many sins by
restraining so great a number of young persons at so
dangerous an age."
In growing old, Madame de Maintenon bas become
austere. "Flee from men," she says, "as from your
mortal enemies. 5Tever be alone with them. Take
no pleasure in hearing that you are pretty, amiable,
or have a fine voice. The world is a malignant
deceiver which seldom means what it says; and the
majority of men who say such things as these to girls
doit, hoping to final some means of ruining them."
Satiated and disillusioned by earthly vanities, she
wishes to inspire others with ber disgust for human
grandeurs. She says to the pupils of Saint-Cyr,
with the accent of conviction : "Princes and prin-
cesses are seldom contented anywhere, and are tired
of everything. They never find pleasures, because
they are always seeking them; they go from palace
to palace, to Meudon, to Marly, to Rambouillet, to
Fontainebleau, with the intention of diverting thera-

MADAME DE MAI_NTE_N01 165

selves. These are admirable places which it would
enchant you te see ; but they are dull there because
one grows accustomed te everything, and in the long
run, the most beautiful things become indifferent,
and cease te give pleasure. Besides, itis net such
things as these which can make us happy. Our
happiness can corne only frein within."
When she speaks te these young gentlewomen of
marriage, itis invariably with a sort of sad repug-
nance. M. Lavallde bas ruade a very judicious reflec-
tion on this subject. "This," he says, "doubtless
arose from the two extraordinary marriages she had
ruade. If at twenty she had married a young man
whom she loved and by whom she had had children,
itis probable that she would bave thought and
spoken otherwise."
As one of the ladies of Saint-Cyr bas said, Madame
de Maintenon's discourses were "lively, simple, natu-
rai, intelligent, insinuating, and pemuasive." She
analyzed herself with the saine impaïtiality with
which she judged the qualities and the defects of her
neighbor. Her talks were like a perpetual examine-
tion of conscience, a continuous meditation, a demon-
stration of the inanity and nothingness of human
grandeurs by a woman who knew them the most
thoroughly.
Auster¢ and admirable instructions! But were all
th¢ young girls in a condition te understand them?
We fancy that more than one of them is only hall
¢onvinced. Perhaps ther¢ are seine who say that,

166 THE WOMEN OF V.EBSAILL:ES

after all, Madame de Maintenon was not always so
scornful of the world ; that she loved it well enough
fo prefer Scarron to a convent, and that she, more
than any other woman, bas been flattered by distinc-
tions and eulogies; that in her youth she was proud
enough of ber successes in the bllliant salons of the
hôtel d'Albret or the hôtel de Richelieu. Among
the gentlewomen of Saint-Cyr there are doubtless, at
the side of real saints, some young girls of ardent
imaginations whom the dread of storms does not dis-
gust with the ocean, and who, in despite of Madame de
Maintenon's sage counsels, dream of trusting theln-
selves toits waves in a bark decked with festoons
and flowers. We are seldom impressed by the expe-
rience of others. Itis our own disappointments, our
own sufferings, that interest us. Madame de Mainte-
non is well aware of this, and yet it does hot deter
ber from her pious exhortations. "Why cannot I
unveil my heart to all sisters," she cries, "so that
they might feel the whole worth of their vocation!
What would I not give to make theln see as fully as
I do the pleasures by which we seek to shorten the
dream of life !" In recapitulating ber entire career,
this chosen woman, whose mind is so observing, so
practical, and judicious, arrives at conclusions which
are all on the side of virtue, religion, and God; and
the sacred asylum where she has already designated
her place of burial inspires ber with none but sound
thoughts and salutary reflections.

XI

THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS
(The Princess Palatine)

O NE of the ca__uses which ruade Madame de Main-
tenon prefer Saint-Cyr_'t-ô Ves-illes, was that
she believed herself to be loved at_Saint-Cyr, wlïile
at Versailles she felt the shafts of malev_olen.çe, an
hatred pierce her through an apparent deference and
obsequious protestations of devotio_n____and espect.
Certain persons who-=saw ïïe continually and mani-
fested the greatest regard for her, detested her cor-
dially, and her profound knowledge of the human
heart ruade her always aware of it. Chief among
these secret antipathies existing in a latent condition
against Madame de Maintenon, must be reckoned
the violent and relentless enmity of the Princess
Palatine, the second wife of the Duke of Orleans.
The accusations brought against the wife of Louis
XIV. by this implacable German woman are so
exaggerated and unlikely that on the whole they
redound to the credit of ber at whom they were
aimed. The Amsterdam libels, the Protestant pam-
phlets, never invented such enormities. They are a
167

:168 THE WOME.N OF V.ERSAILLE8

torrent of insults, an orgy of hatred, the slang of Bil-
lingsgate in the finest palace of the world. They are
calumnies which stop at nothing. If one were to
believe the Princess Palatine, "this nasty old thing,
this wicked devil, this filthy, shrivelled-up old Main-
tenon" would be a go-between, a procuress, a poisoner,
a Locusta.
The woman who gave herself up to such furious
diatribes in ber correspondence is assuredly one of
the most singular figures in the feminine gallery of
Versailles. Her physique, ber mind, ber style, ber
character, ai1 bear a stamp that is unique. Resem-
bling no one else and contrasting strongly with
who surround ber, she serres as a kind of set-off fo
the fine and delicate beauties of her time. To our
mind, no woman bas shown herself more fully in ber
letters than the Princess Palatine. She is ail there
with ber defects and her qualities, ber curious mixture
of austere morals and cynical language, the haughty
ways of a great lady and the expressions of a woman
of the people, ber pretended disdain for human
grandeurs, and her tierce passion for the prerogatives
of her tank.
This is the Princess whose portrait bas been so
truthfully painted by Saint-Simon: frank and up-
right, good and beneficent, grand in ail ber manners,
and little fo the last degree in ail that concerns what
she thinks ber due. A woman of masculine bearing,
not coquettish, not desirous to please, honest in ber
morals but shameless in ber speech, somewhat rigid

THE .DUCIESS OF ORLEA.NS 169

and martial in ber character and tastes, loving dogs,
horses, and the chase, hard to herself, ber own doctor
in case she is a trifle indisposed, able to walk two
full leagues. If is not poetical, sentimental, dreamy
Germany which ber very original type represents so
exactly, but Germany under its rustic, almost savage
aspects, its energy and rudeness, its antiquated preju-
dices, its amalgam of simplicity and arrogance, of
credulity and pride.
The letters of the Princess Palatine lose much of
their savor when translated into French. It is only
in German that they bave that smack of terror, that
impulsiveness, that tone now cynical, now burlesque,
which is their chief merit. Exaggerated and passion-
ate as they are, they are worth consulting, even after
the Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon. Doubtless,
Madame bas none of the genius of this French
Tacitus. But there is more than one analogy in
their styles and their destinies. They are both of
them essentially doubtful witnesses, for each was
biassed and could not judge impartially in cases which
nearly concerned their spites and prejudices. But
neither of them even sought to laide his or ber par-
tiality.
Hence nothing is casier than to find the truth
which underlies their falsehoods. If she bas hot the
genius of Saint-Simon, Madame bas his wrath and
indignation and his hatreds. Like him, she is obliged
to receive ber enemies well, to put continual con-
straint on herself, to live with the bastards whom

170 TttE WOME_N OF VERSAILLES

execrates, to salute the morganatic queen whom she
bas a horror of. She is an honest woman as he is an
honest man. She loves right, justice, and truth as he
does. Like him, she writes in secret and consoles
herself for a perpetual constraint by exaggerating
the libeloEy of style. Like him, she wreaks ber ven-
geance by means of pen and ink. It is from ber
curious letters that we shall try to describe ber
character.
Daughter of the Elector Palatine Charles-Louis
and of the Princess Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel, the
second wife of the Duke of Orleans was born at the
castle of Heidelberg. As a child she preferred guns
to dolls, and thus displayed already the masculine
aspects of ber character. She was nineteen years
old when ber marriage with the brother of Louis
XIV. was decided on.
She set out for France in 1671. Three bishops
were sent to the frontier to instruct ber in the
Catholic religion, which was henceforth to be ber
own. The three prelates began their work at Metz
and terminated it on their arrival at Versailles. The
Prîncess, who possibly regretted ber Protestantism
somewhat, said she had never round ber instructors
in perfect accord with each other, and that she had
taken a little of their doctrines from ull three.
The new Duchess of Orleans was the opposite in
ail respects of ber over whom Bossuer had preached
so touching a funeral sermon. The court which had
admired the very type of elegance and beauty in the

THE DUCHE88 O.F Ot.LEA.N8 171

first Madame, found in the second that of rudeness
and ugliness. The one was as coquettish as the
other was lacking in the wish to please. The Prin-
cess Palatine took a sort of delight in exaggerating
vhat she thought of ber own physique. "I huve
big hanging cheeks and a large face," she wrote;
"moreover, my figure is very small, short, and thick;
sure total, I am an ugly little creature. If I had not
a good heart, no one could put up with me anywhere,
To know whether my eyes display intelligence it
would be necessary to examine them with a micro-
scope or with glasses ; otherwise it would be difiîcult
to judge. Probably no such villanous hands as
mine could be round anywhere on eurth. The King
remarked as much to me and made me laugh heartily ;
for never having been able to flatter myself con-
scientiously on having anything pretty about me, I
bave adopted the plan of being the first to laugh at
my ugliness, and it bas succeeded very well."
If the Princess Palatine did not dazzle the court,
the court on the other hand did not dazzle ber.
Versailles and ifs splendors left ber unmoved. "I
like better," she wrote, "fo see trees and fields than
the finest palaces ; I like a kitchen garden better than
gardens udorned with statues and fountains; a
streamlet pleases me more than sumptuous cascades;
in a word, all that is natural is infinitely more to
my taste than works of art and magnificence; they
please only at the first glance, and as soon as one is
accustomed to them they create fatigue, and one

172 TIIE IVOME.N OF VER8AIZZE8

cares about them no longer." What Madame loved
and regretted was her German Rhine, the hills where
as a child she had seen the sun rise, and had eaten
bread and cherries.
The youthful nobility of France, in spite of its
elegance, luxury, and animation, had no attraction for
her. "All the young people in general," said she,
"are horribly debauched and addicted to every vice,
hot excepting lying and deceit. They consider it a
shame to pique themselves on being men of honor.
They do nothing but drink, wallow in debauchery,
and talk obscenely. You can easily judge from this
what great pleasure honest people must enjoy here;
but I am afraid that if I carry my details concerning
the court any farther, I shall cause you the same dis-
gust that I often experience myself, and that this
disgust may end by becoming a contagious disease."
Madame's husband was hot a consolation to her,
because, criticising him with legitimate severity, she
did not profess more than a moderate esteem and
affection for him. She never forgave him for sur-
rounding himself with men accused of having
assassimted his first wife, the beautiful and poetic
Henrietta of England, and, showing the greatest
contempt for the Chevalier de Lorraine, she did not
feel in safety herself. She suffered from the charac-
ter of her husband, feeble, timid, governed by favor-
ites, and often misled by them: "annoying and in-
capable of keeping any secret, suspicious, mistrust-
ful, sowing discords in his court for the sake of

THE DUCHESS OF ORLEAIV8 173

confusion to find out something, and often also to
amaze himself."
For the Princess Palatine religion was an insuffi-
cient solace for the annoyances and vexations of
which she was incessantly the victim. Born in the
Protestant religion, she did not well comprehend
the mystic and sacred joys of Catholic worship.
Although she was not a free thinker, she ruade occa-
sional reflections and waggeries which seem to fore-
bode the philosophers of the following century. She
remained a good, practical Christian, but she did not
consider all priests to be in the odor of sanctity. She
had a horror of mixing religion with politics, and
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which was ad-
mired by the clergy, shocked all ber sentiments and
instincts. "I must confess," she wrote, "that when
I hear the eulogies that are given the great man
from the pulpit for having persecuted the reformed,
it always annoys me. I cannot endure to hear
people praise what is bad." "It is inconceivable,"
she wrote again, "how simple the great man is in
matters of religion, because he is not so in other
things. That cornes from his never having studied
religious things, never having read the Bible, and
honestly believing what is told him on this subject."
The grandeur of Bossuet's ideas, the majesty of a
policy derived from the Scriptures, had few attrac-
tions for Madame. "I cannot endure," wrote sbe,
"kings who imagine they please God by praying.
It was hot for that He placed them on the throne.

174 THE II'OME.N" OF VERSAIL.LES

To do good, exercise right and justice, restrain the
clergy and mtke them keep to their prayers without
meddling in other things,--that is what ought to
be the true devotion of kings. Let a king say his
prayers morning and night, that is sufiïcient; for the
test, he ought to think of making his subjects as
happy us he can. ''1 Whatever bore the slightest
resembl:tace to religious persecution aroused un ener-
getic protest in the Princess Palatine. She found
if deplorable that no one could make Louis XIV.
understand that "religion was instituted rather to
preserve uuion among men than to make them tor-
ment and persecute each other." "King James," she
added, "said that our Lord Jesus Christ had certainly
been seen beating men to drive them from the Tem-
ple, but IIe was nowhere round maltreating them to
make them enter it." 
The theological discussions which occupied so
much space at court, did not awaken the slightest
interest in the Princess. On this head she writes:
"All they tell us about the other world is incom-
prehensible. It seems to me impossible to compre-
hend what God does with us, and that we ought
fo confine ourselves to admiring His omnipotence
without desiring to argue about His goodness and
justice." The beautiful and touching ceremonies
of Catholicism, the long sermons, the protracted
offices, did hot greatly please Madame. "I think,"

 Letter of M,rch 23, 1696. u Letter of July 18, 1700.

TttE .DUCHE8S OF ORLEA.NS 175

she writes, "that Monsieur is a devotee, and that
he resembles Henry III. in every way. If this is
the road to heaven, I shall certainly never enter it,
seeing that I find it impossible to hear a high mass.
I get through with my devotions very expeditiously,
for I have a chaplain who hurries through his
mass in a qutrter of an hour, which just suits me."
In plain chant she detested what she described
as an eternal naming of the vowels; and, referring
to it, she said: " Very often, if I dared, I would
run out of the church, so insupportable is this to
me .... I like Doctor Luther for having composed
some fine hymns, and I am persuaded that it bas
given many people the notion of becoming Luther-
ans, for those hymns have something gay about
them."
Madame, who was very observant, analyzed and
described the various kinds of piety exhibited by the
courtiers. "In m,tters of devotion, I see that every
one follows his inclination; those who like to babble
want to pray a good deal; those who are generous
by nature always give altos; those who are choleric
and easily annoyed are constantly in transports and
want to kill everybody; those, on the other hand,
who are gay, think they can serve God very well
by rejoicing in all things and being annoyed by
nothing. In short, devotion is, for those addicted
to it, a touchstone which discovers their natural
inclinations. For my part, I think the worst devo-
tees are the ambitious ones who simulate devotion

176 THE WOMEI OF $rERSAILLES

in order fo rule, and who claire to render a great
service to God by subjeeting everything fo their
power. The most supportable are those who, hav-
ing been very amorous, when they once tke God
for their object, think of nothing but speaking to
Him affectionately, and leave everybody else at
peace." 1
What shocked Madame was not religion, which
she respected, but the hypocrites who used it as a
mask. I-Ier indignation was hot directed against the
faith, but against the rising flood of scepticism, and
we credit ber with sincere grief when she wrote in
1699: "The faith is so extinct in this country that
one hardly finds a single young man who does hot
wish fo be an atheist; but what is stranger still is
that the same individual who turns atheist at Paris
plays the devotee af COUl. If is claimed also that
all the suicides which bave been so frequent lately
are caused by atheism."
With such an opinion of the courtiers, it is easy to
understand how badly off the Princess Palatine must
have round herself among them. German to the end
of her finger-nails, she suffered when obliged to lire
beside the enemies of ber country, and the conflagra-
tions of the Palatinate seemed to ber infernal flames.
This court which played and danced while the pal-
aces and cabins of Germany were burning, became to
her an object of horror. Tho unhappy people who

1 Letter oî July 7, 1695.

THE DUCHESS OF ORLEAI8 177

were expelled from their homes, robbed, despoiled,
maltreated; the ruins of Heidelberg, Manheim, An-
derdach, Baden, Rastadt, Spire, Worms, were con-
stantly in ber mind. Pursued as by phantoms, she
was a prey to patriotie despair and anguish, and felt
herself a prisoner in the splendid palaee of Versailles.
There is something touching in her plaints : "Were
it to save my life it is impossible for me hot to regret
being, so to say, the pretext for the ruin of my coun-
try. I eannot look on coolly while they destroy at
a single blow in that poor Manheim all that eost
the late Prince Eleetor, my father, so much toil and
trouble. Yes, when I think of all that has been ruined
there, it fflls me with such horror that every night as
soon as I begin to fall asleep I seem to be at Heidel-
berg or Manheim beholding the ravages that have
been eommitted. Then I start up wide awake, and
it takes me more than two hours to go to sleep again.
I faney how it ail was in my time and to what con-
dition it hus been reduced to-day; I eonsider also in
what condition I am myself, and I eannot avoid weep-
ing bitter tears." 1
The Princess round few with whom she sympathized
in this large and brilliant court. She admired neither
the men, the women, nor the things that figured there.
Everything displeased and annoyed ber. The figure
of the King, whom she somewhat ironically ealled
the great man, was the only one that seemed to ber

1 Letter of March 20, 1689.

178 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

majestic, and even on that sun she "discovered many
spots. Her family afforded ber no satisfaction. She
had the sorriest opinion of ber husband, who was
incessantly occupied with futilities, masquerades, and
cynical intrigues. One of ber letters, written in
1(;96, contains this curious passage : "Monsieur says
openly, and he had not concealed it from either his
daughter or me, that as he is beginning to grow old
he bas no rime to lose, that he will do everything and
spare nothing to amuse himself up to the last, that
those who survive him will know how to spend their
rime after their own fashion, but that he loves him-
self better than me or his children, and that in con-
sequence he intends, so long as he lives, to attend to
no one but himself, and he acts as he talks."
Madame was not more happy in ber son, the future
regent, than in ber husband. The judgment she
passed on this son, who wilfully Sl)oiled the fine
qualities he had been endowed with by nature, justi-
fies that of Louis XIV. on this boaster of vices, "fan-
faron de vices." "Although his inclinations are in
reality serious," she writes, "and he does hot take
kindly to debauchery, he yields to it solely to imitate
others, and that is what annoys me most of all. If
the pleasure were in his nature, I should not bave
much to say against it; but that he should do vio-
lence to himself in order to take to vice and talk
twaddle, while at the saine rime he hides everything
that is good in him--this is what I cannot endure
without pain."

THE DUCHESS OF OR.LEAzYS 179

The Princess Palatine had a horror of illegitimate
births, and her pride was outraged by the rank occu-
pied at court by the daughters of Louis XIV. and
Madame de Montespan, whom she detested, to use
ber own expressions, as being "the bastards of a
double adultery, the children of the worst and most
abandoned woman that the earth can bear." Hence,
when her son consented to marry one of these bas-
tards, she vas so enraged as to give him, in the
gallery of Versailles, that vigomus and resounding
slap in the face, which re-echoes so plainly in Saint-
Simon's Memoirs. She wrote in 1700: "My son bas
caused me much grief in addition to his marriage.
• . . What I find worst in his conduct is that I am
the only one who cannot have his friendship, for with
that exception he is good to everybody. And yet I
bave only lost his friendship by always advising him
in his own interest. At present I have taken my
stand ; I say nothing more to him, and speak to him
as I would to the first corner of indifferent things;
but it is a very painful thing not to be able to open
one's heart to those one loves."
Inwardly tormented, exasperated by ber husband's
favorites, saddened as a wife, a mother, and a German,
Madame cared little for the splendors of Versailles
and Saint-Cloud, where ber existence was a blending
of luxury and poverty. "Certainly," said she, "I
would attach great value to grandeur if one could
bave all that should accomp,ny it, plenty of gold,
for instance, in order to be magnificent, and the

180 THE WOMEN OF VERAILLES

power to assist the good and punish the wicked; but
to have only the naine of grandeur without the money,
to be reduced to the strictest necessaries, to lire
uader perpetual constraint without its being possible
to have any society, this seems to me, in truth, per-
fectly insipid, and I care nothing whatever about it.
I should prize more a condition in which one could
amuse one's self with good friends without the troubles
of grandeur, and do with one's property whatever one
pleased." 1
How did the Princess Palatine continue to divert
herself from so many worries and cures ? By hunting
and writing. The chase, and still more the epistolary
style,--these were her two passions, her two manias.
From 1671, the year of her marriage, fo 1722, the year
of her death, she never stopped writing letters to the
members of her German family. On Mondays she
wrote to Savoy, on Wednesdays to Modena, Thurs-
days and Sundays to Hanover. But this rage for
scribbling was fatal to ber notwithstanding. Her
correspondence, opened af the post-office, was sent to
Madame de Maintenon, who showed the imprudent
Princess aletter full of the most outrageous insults.
"One can fancy," says Suint-Simon, "whether af this
aspect and this reading Madame did not think of
dying on the spot. She began to cry, and Madame
de Maintenon fo represent modestly to ber the
enormity of every part of this letter, and in a foreign

1 Letter of August 21, 1695.

country, too. The best excuse for Madame was to
own up what she could not deny, pardons, repent-
ances, prayers, promises .... "
Madame de Maintenon coldly enjoyed her triumph
for some time, letting the Princess choke over her
words, weep, and try to take ber hands. It was a
terrible humiliation for so arrogant and proud a Ger-
man. Nothing more is needed to explain the hatred
of the Princess Palatine for ber to whom in her rage
she applied the old German proverb: "Where the
devil cannot go himself he sends an old woman."
Madame quieted down when she became a widow
in 1701. "No convent," said she the day after Mon-
sieur died ; "let no one talk to me about a convent !"
Happy to remain at court, in spite of the ill things
she had said about it, she softened towards Madame
de Maintenon sufficiently to write in 1712: "A1-
though the old woman is our most cruel enemy, still
I wish ber a long life, for everything would go ten
times worse than it does if the King were to die now.
He bas loved this woman so much that he certainly
would not survive ber ; therefore I hope she may live
for many years."
Madame ended her days like a good Christian, and
Massillon, in a beautiful funeral oration, rendered
due homage to the courage she had displayed in her
last sufferings. To those who surrounded her death-
bed she had said with a calmness worthy of Louis
XIV. : "We shall meet again in heaven."
To sum up, Madame the Duchess of Orleans is a

182 THE WOMEN OF VERSAI.LZES

very strange type, but she demands attention whether
or no. In ber, ul)rightness and good sense, justice
and humanity, coexist with great caprices. In ber
letters, amidst a mass of insignificant details, more
or less inexact, anecdotes, commonplaces, and worldly
gossip, there are thoughts worthy of a moralist and
judgments that bear the stamp of wisdom. It is true
she preached morality in cynical language; but if
she speaks of debauchery, it is only to stigmatize it
and depict its shamefulness. She bas at least the
merit of seeing vice as it is, of looking it in the face,
of detesting it with a warlike, aggressive, irreconcil-
able hatred, of stiglnatizing it in Rabelaisian accents,
whose triviality renders them more striking than fine
homilies. For that marrer, are hot crudities of lan-
guage and audacities of expression less dangerous
than certain refinements of half-mystical, half-sen-
sual poesy which, by confounding the alcove with
the oratory, envelop voluptuousness in a cloud of
incense ?

XII

MADAME DE MAINTENON AS A POLITICAL WOlV[AN

O write history with the aid of pamphlets, to
accept as verities all the inventions of malevo-
lence or hatred, to say with Beaumarchais : "Calum-
niate, calumniate, some trace of it will always
remain," to belittle what is great, to misinterpret
what is noble, to tarnish what is brilliant,--such are
the tactics of the sworn enemies of our traditions
and our glories, such is the pleasure of the iconoclasts
who would like to efface from our annals all gran-
diose or najestic figures. The revolutionary school
whose disciples they are has already done much
harm. It has sapped the foundations of the edifice;
it has aided to destroy that respect which is indis-
pensable to well-organized societies ; it has converted
books into libels, criticisms into invectives, portraits
into caricatures; it has conspired vith that essen-
tially false literature known as the historical novel,
to travesty persons and things and spread abroad a
mass of exaggerations and fables which confuse facts
and ideas and reverse the conceptions of good sense
and justice. 0ne of the men whom this school hold
183

184 TH VfO_N OF VERSAILL8

most in horror is Louis XIV., because he was the
representative or, better, the living symbol of the
principle of authority. It is tired of hearing him
called the Great, like that Athenian who was weary
of hearing Aristides called the Just. It bas fancied
it would extinguish the royal sun by breathing on it.
An old potentate kept in leading strings by a bigoted
and intriguing old woman,--such is the image it
would delineate, the characteristics it wishes to hand
down to posterity as those of him who to his last
hour, his latest breath, remained what he had been
throughout his life--the very type of royalty, the
sovereign by excellence. To dishonor Louis XIV.
in the woman whom he chose among all others as
the companion of his maturity and his old age,--
such has been and still is the thing aimed at by
writers of this school. They have based their judg-
ments on those of the Duchess of Orleans, the Prin-
cess Palatine whose portrait we bave just essayed to
trace, and on those of another equally objectionable
witness, the Duke de Saint-Simon. It ought not to
be forgotten that this hot-headed duke and peer, who
often talked like Philinte if he always thought like
Alceste, was at least frank enough to say of himself:
"The stoic is a fine and noble chimera. I do not
pique myself, therefore, on impartiality ; I should do
so in vain." It irritated him tobe of no account in
a government where many a man of middling abili-
ries had secured the sovereign's favor. To be con-
demned to the idle existence of a courtier, to lire in

.MADAME DE MAINTENON 185

ante-chambers, on staircases, in the courts and gar-
dens of Versailles and other royal residences, vexed
and displeased his vanity. He laid the blame of this
on Louis XIV. at first, and afterwards on the woman
whom he considered as the arbit_ er of all app9int___:
ments. But it was only in his Memoirs, written
clandestinely and kept under lock and key, that he
dared give expression to his wrath. He was all
respect and docility in presence of the King. After
bestirring himself a good deal concerning a certain
collection which had been a subject of litigation be-
tween the princesses and duchesses, he said humbly
to the King that to please him he would bave passed
around the plate like a village church-warden. He
added that Louis XIV. was, "as king and as bene-
factor of all dukes, despotically toaster of their dig-
nities, to abase or to elevate them, to dispose of them
as a thing belonging to him and absolutely in his
power." He was not more haughty in tresenc__e_.
of her whom he characterizes in his Memoirs as a

"norïo-the begging wid_d_9_ov of

.poet"_LHe even tried to gain her over to the inter-
ests of his ambition, and to obtain through her means
a captaincy of guards. Furious at not being called
to the greatest positions o State, he pleased himself
with thêposth-umous revenge of decribing Madame
de Maintenon in thè'ost-odious c------olors. Relying
on his imagination in default of oher proofs, he
makes of her a sort of ancient courtesan, living by
debauchery in ber youth and by intrigue in riper

186 THE WOME1V OF VERSAILLES

years. What he says of ber is a tissue of inaccura-
cies. He assigns ber birth to America, while it is
certain that she was born af Niort. He will scarcely
admit that her father was a gentlenmn, while his
nobility is absolutely incontestable. He accuses ber
of having been supported by Villars, father of the
marshal, by the three Villarceaux, and by several
others, while itis positive that she never received a
farthing. Obliged to own that on Scarron's dcath
she was "reduced to the charity of her parish of
Saint-Eustache," he does not perceive that such an
assertion concerning a woman whose beauty was
celebrated throughout Paris proves in an undeniable
fashion the virtue of that woman. He reproaches
ber with having been led astray by the counsels
of Ninon de Lenclos, whereas Ninon herself says:
"Madame de Maintenon was virtuous in ber youth
through weak-mindedness. I wanted to cure ber of
it, but she feared God too much."
Every day increases the fame of Saint-Simon con-
sidered as a writer. One must admire a style which
recalls by turns the boldness of Bossuet, the brill-
iancy of La Bruyère, and the ease and freedom of
Madame de Sévigné. But, on the other hand, the
more one studies the court of Louis XIV., the more
fully one recognizes that the famous memoirs are
full of inaccuracies. In his remarkable critical study
of Saint-Simon's work, the learned M. Chéruel 1

1 çaint-çimon considéré comme hstorfen de Louis .XIV. by M.
Chruel.

JlIADAME DE MAI]VTE]VO]V 187

has already refuted in an invincible lnanner a great
number of his errors, and M. Soulié, curator of the
Museum of Versailles, is constantly discovering new
ones in the course of his patient and indefatiga-
ble researches. M. Ch6ruel has abundant reason to
say: "Saint-Simon's observation is subtle, sagacious,
penetrating when it is a question of sounding the
recesses of the hearts of courtiers; but it lacks
breadth and grandeur. The court bounds his hori-
zon. All that lies beyond it is vague and indetermi-
nate for him. While granting him the perspicacity
of an observer one must derby him the impartiality
of a judge." To listen to him, Madame de Mainte-
non is the sole mistress of France, the omnipotent
sultana, the _pantocrate, as the Princess Palatine calls
ber in her curious jargon. Iie describes with many
details "ber incredible success, the entire confidence,
the rare dependence, the almightiness, the almost
universal public adoration, the ministers, the gen-
erals of the army, the royal family at her feet, every
boon and every advantage through ber, everything
rejected without ber; men, affairs, things, appoint-
ments, justice, favors, religion, everything without
exception in her hands, and the King and the State
ber victims." Needless to say that the revolutionary
school has accepted this exaggerated assertion liter-
ally. To believe it, Louis XIV. is nothing but a
manikin of which Madame de Maintenon pulls the
strings, a sort of crowned G6ronte who lets himself
be tricked like a child by a Jesuit and an old woman.

188 THE WOME.N OF VERSAILLES

Itis thus they seek to tarnish the aureole with which
posterity has surrounded the most majestic of all
instances of old age.
Let them say what they will. Louis XIV. always
remained toaster, and it was he who traced the great
political lines of his reign. Madame de Maintenon
may have advised him, but it was he who gave the
fiaS] ]ecson. We say wflhngly, wth M. Emfle
Chasles: "This intelligent woman, far from being
too much listened to, was hot enough so. There was
in her a veritable love for the public welfare, a true
sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To-day it
is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of
her power and add a great deal to that of her soul."
It is well worthy of remark that the woman who
is now accused of a mischievcl]s meddling in every-
thing, was reproached by the most eminent men of
her rime of standing too much aside. Fénelon wrote
to her : "They say you take too little part in affairs.
Your mind is more capable of it than you think.
You are perhaps a little too distrustful of yourself,
or rather you are too much afraid to enter into dis-
cussions contrary to the inclination you have for a
tranquil and meditative life." That Madame de
Maintenon may have influenced certain appointmen-"
does not appear do.ubtfal, but'-thât she alone, of her
own motion, control__led thêminist--ém, is a pure [ff:
vention. We believe ber to have been sincere when
she wrote to Madame des Ursins : "In whatever way
matters turn, I conjure you, madame, to regard me as

.MADA.ME DE .MAINTE.NON 189

Person incapable of affairs, who heard them talked
f too late to be skilful in them, and who hates them
ore than she ignores them .... My interference
in them is not desired, and I do not desire to inter-
fere. They are not concealed from me; but I know
nothing consecutively, and am often badly informed."
Reading or working at her tapestry, while the Ki_g
wa working with one or another o[-his mip_iste_Lz
Madam-ê-e Maintenon never timidly hzarded a

 except formally when re_quested Her attitude
toward Louis XIV. was that of respect, humility,
and modesty. True, the King said to her: " Thcy
call the popes Your Holiness, and kings Your Maj-
esty; you, Madame, should be called Your Solidity."
But this praise did hot turn the head of so prudent
and reasonable a woman.
To sum up, what is the chief accusation brought
against Louis XIV. ? His wars, his passion for lux-
ury, his religious fanaticism. How can this triple
accusation weigh upon Madame de Maintenon ? Far
from urging him to war, she always desired peace
ardently. "I long after peace," she wrote in 1684;
"I shall never give the King any counsels prejudicial
to his glory; but if he would believe me, he would
be less dazzled with this éclat of victory, and would
think more seriously of his salvation, but it is hot
my business to govern the State; I ask God daily to
inspire and direct the toaster and make him know
the truth." Unfavorable to ber as he is, M. Michelet
nevertheless owns that she profoundly regretted the

190 THE WOIEN OF VERSAILLES

war of the succession in Spain. He says that "the
only ones who retained good sense, old Maintenon
and the sickly Beauvilliers saw with terror that they
were plunging into the frightful enterprise which was
going to swallow up everything .... Just as she
aIlowed a written decision for the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes to be extorted from ber, so she
yielded, she submitted for the succession." 1
She was no fonder of luxury than of war. Living
vith extreme simplicity herself, she sought to deter
Louis XIV. from magnificent constructions and
ostentatious displays of pride. According to Made-
moiselle d'Aumale, the confidant of ber good works,
she reproached herself on account of ber modest
personal expenses. She never bought a new gown
mtil it was absolutely needed, and then said: "I ara
taking that away from the poor. My position bas
many unpleasant sides, but it procures me the pleas-
ure of giving. And yet as it prevents me from lack-
ing anything, and as I can never encroach upon my
necessaries, all my alms are a sort of luxury, good
and permissible, it is true, but devoid of merit."
Madame de Maintenon not only counted for noth-
ing in the luxury of Louis XIV., she hot merely
never ceased recalling him to ideas truly Christian,
but she incessantly__pleaded the cause of the peopl, e
whose wretchednes__s she pitied'-while she admired
their resignation. Never allowing herself to be

I Michelet Louis XIV. et le duc de Bourgogne.

MADAME DE .MAI.NTE.NO.N 191

elated by the incense burned at her feet as well as at
those of Louis XIV., she had neither those bursts of
pridc, that thirst for riches, nor that eagcl'nCS.Or
d0ïïiffatioîwIîTcives of nearl all
fà'çoritês. -ï- She was indifferent to jewels, rich stuffs,
and costly furniturc. Even in ber youth and amidst
the infatuati_.o_n excitcd by ber beaut her mil
been her chicf adornment, and she had never been
dazzlcd by exterior display. No prodigality is con-
nected with ber hume.
The chier conTlaint formulated against Madame
de Maintenon by certain historians is the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes. They load her with anath-
emas us if she alone were responsible for that fatal
measure. Forgetting that it was during his passion
for Mademoiselle de Fontanges that Louis XIV.
began to take rigorous lcgislative proceedings against
the Protestants, they attribute the persecution to the
hypocritical zeal of a narrow devotion inspired by
Madame de Maintenon alone. On the contmry, the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which we are very
fur from approving, was, one may say, forced on the
King by public opinion:._ As bas been remarked by
M. Théophile Lavallée, those of the reformcd church
preserved toward the government the attitude of
children in disgracc, and towards the Catholics that
of disdainful enemies; they persisted in their isola-
tion; they continucd their corrcspondence with their
friends in England and Holland.  " France," has

 M. Lavallée, Histoire de France.

192 THE WOME.N 0Ii' V.ERSAILLES

said M. 1Hichelet, "round a Holland in ber own
bosom which was rejoicing at the success of the
other one." 1
To recall the dissidents fo unity was the fixed
idea of Louis XIV. This, as was said at the time,
would be the meritoHous work and proper character-
istic of his reign. The assembly of the clergy, the
parliament of Toulouse, the Catholics of the south of
France, had urgently solicited the revocation. When
the decree appeared there was an explosion of en-
thusiasm. Whatever Saint-Simon may say, the court
of Rome testified an extreme joy. Innocent XI.
hastened to address a bHef to Louis XIV. thanking
him in the naine of the Church. He caused the
cannon of Castle Saint Angelo fo be fired, and held
a papal chapel at which the Te Deum was chanted.
The Duke d'Estrges, French ambassador to the Holy
See, wrote to the King: "His Holiness said to me
that what Charlemagne had done was nothing in
comparison to what has just been accomplished by
Your Majesty, that there was nothing so great, and
that no example of a similar action could be round."
Chancellor Letellier, intoning the canticle of Simeon,
died saying that he had nothing left to wish for after
this final act of his long ministry. Bossuet rose to
lyrical transports : "Delay not to publish this miracle
of our own days. Pass on the story to future ages.
Take up your sacred pens, ye who compose the

1 . ichelet, Précis sur l'Histoire moderne.

MADAME D MAllTE?'O?" 198

annals of the Church .... Touched by so many
marvels, let our hearts dilate over the piety of
Louis; lift even to heaven our acclamations, and say
to this new Constantine, this new Theodosius, this
new Charlemagne, what the six hundred and thirty
Fathers said of old in the Councils of Chalcedon:
' You have consolidated the faith, you have extermi-
nated the heretics.'" 1 Saint-Simon, who blames the
revocation with so much eloquence, avows that Louis
XIV. was convinced of having performed a holy
action. "The monarch had never thought himself so
great in the sight of men, nor so far advanced in the
sight of God in the reparation of the sins and scan-
dais of his life. He heard nothing but eulogies."
The laity did not applaud him less than the clergy.
Madame de Sévigné wrote, October 8, 1685: "lqever
bas any king done nor ever will do so memorable a
thing." Rollin, La Fontaine, La Bruyère, displayed
as much enthusiasm as Fénelon, Massillon and
Fléchier. These lines by Madame Deshoulières
reflect the general impression:--
"Ah ! pour sauver ton people et pour venger la foi,
Ce que tu viens de faire est au-dessus de l'homme.
De quelques grand noms qu'on te nomme,
On t'abaisse; il n'est plus d'assez grand noms pour toi." 
1 Bossuet, Oraison funèbre de lllichel Leteller.
u Ah I to save thy people and to avenge the faith,
What thou has just done is above the power of man.
By whatever great names they name thee,
Thou art abased ; no naine henceforth is great enough far thee.

194 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILZES

Doubtless Madame de Maintenon allowed herself
to be carried away by the unanimous sentiment of
the Catholic world. But it was assuredly hOt she
vho took the initiative. Voltaire recognizes this
when he says: "One sees by her letters that she did
hot urge the revoction_ of lqantes, but that she dioe
not oppose it.'-- -
In a letter of September 4, 1678, she writes con-
cerning ubjurations which were insincere: " I ara
indignant at such conversions; the state of those
who abjure without being truly Catholics is infa-
mous." We read in the 1Votes des Dames de Saint-
Cyr : Madame de Maintenon, while desiring with
all ber heart the reunion of the Huguenots to the
Church, would have desired that it might rather be
by the way of persuasion and gentleness than by
severity; and she told us that the King, wto w
very zealous, would have liked to see her more eager
thaa she seemed, and that he said to her on ths
account : "I fear, Madame, lest tbe consideration you
wish shown to the Huguenots may be the result of
some remaining bias towu'd your former religion."
Fénelon himself, who is represented as the apostle
of tolerance, approved the principle of the revocation
of the Edict of Iqantes. " Though no sovereign,"
said he "may require interior belief in religious
matters from his subjects, he may prevent the public
e.ercise, or the profession of opiaions, or ceremonies,
which disturb the peace of the commonwealth, by the
diversity and multiplicity of sects." Such was also

.MADAME DE MAINTENON 195

the opinion of Madame de Maintenon. But Protes-
tant writers themselves have recognized that she
blamed the employment of force. It is the historian
of the French refugees in Brandenburg vho says:
"Let us do her justice. She never counselled the
violent means that were used; she abhorred persecu-
tions, and those that were practised vere concealed
from her."
Madame de Maintenou was essentially moderate,
both in religion and in politics. Her counsels counted
for something in the declaratiu or December
]ï698,-whih,-while-ïiaifitanin--te revoctio'i-of the
Eï/i-of Nantes, established a toleration vhich lasted
until the end of the reign. Let us be on our guard,
moreover, against sharing the gross error of those
who behold servitude in Catholicism and liberty in
Protestantism. Luther recommended the extermina-
tion of Anabaptists. Calvin executed Michael Ser-
vetus, Jacques Brunet, and Valentin Gentiles for
heresy. The inhumanities of Louis XIV. toward
Protestants did not equal those of William of Orange
against Catholics. The English laws vere of Draco-
nian severity; any Catholic priest residing in Eng-
land, who had hot after three days embraced the
Anglican cult, was liable to the penalty of death.
And nowadays they want to persuade us that in the
strife between Louis XIV. and William, it was the
Protestant prince who represented the principle of
religious toleration
To sum up, whether the revocation of the Edict of

196 TH.E VOMEN OF VER,_AILLE8

Nantes or any other act of the great reign is in ques-
tion, Madame de Maintenon did not play the odious
part which bas been attributed fo her by calumny.
We do not believe she ever outstepped the limits of
that legitimate influence which a devoted and intelli-
gent woman usually exercises over ber husband. If
she was often mistaken, af least she was mistaken in
good faith. The real Madame de Maintenon is not
the mischievous, malicious, crafty, and vindictive
bigot imagined by certain writers ; she is a pious and
reasonable woman, animated by the noblest intentions,
loving France sincerely, sympathizing deeply with---
the sufferings of the people, detesting war, respecting
right and justice, austere in ber fastes, moderatê i
ber opinions, irreproachable in ber conduct.
Speaking of the accord which existed between ber
and the group of truly religious great nobles, M.
Michelet bas said: "Let us regard this little group
as a convent in the midst of the court, a convent con-
spiring for the anelioration of the King. In general,
it is the converted court. What is fine, ver 5, fine in
this party, what constitutes ifs honorable bond, is the
edifying reconciliation of mortal .enemies. The
Duchess de Béthune-Charost, daughter of Fouquet,
the man whom Colbert imprisoned for twenty years,
became the friend, almost the sister of the three
daughters of ber father's persecutor." Such were
the sentiments which Madame de Maintenon kne,w
how fo inspire. Every morning and night she said
from the depths of ber soul this prayer which she had

MADAME DE MA1.NTE.NO.N 197

composed: "Lord, grant me to gladden the King,_.to _
console him, tb--èïï-Surage him, to sadden him also
hêa it must r Thy glçry. Caus__----'--------- _t'ô]te
from him nothing which he ought to know through
me, and which no one else would ,bave the courage
to tell him."
No; there was nothing hypocritical in such piety,
and the companion of Louis XIV. was sincere when
she said to Madame de Glapion: "I should like to
die before the King ; I would go to God ; I would cast
myself at the foot of His throne ; I would offer Him
the desires of a soul that He would bave purified; I
would pray Him to grant the King greater lights,
more love for his people, more knowledge of the
state of the provinces, more aversion for the perfidy
of the courtiers, more horror of the ways in which
his authority is abused; and God would hear my
prayers."

XIII

MADAME DE hIAINTENON'S LETTERS

ADAME DE MAINTENON is one of those
characters who require to be patiently and
conscientiously studied by an observer who wishes to
render an impartial judgment. At first, Louis XIV.
did not like the woman destined to become the most
serious and lasting affection of his lire. "The King
did not like me," she writes herself, "and long held
me in aversion; he was afraid of me as a wit."
How was it that Louis XIV. passed from repug-
nance to Sylnpathy, from distrust to confidence, from
prejudice to admiration ? It was by getting a nearer
view of moral qualities which at first he saw only
from a distance. The same thing has happened to a
nmjority of the critics who, having to speak of
5Ldame de Maintenon, bave not been contented with
superficial views, but bave carefully analyzed the lire
and character of this celebrated woman. What bas
occurred to one of ber principal defenders, M. Théo-
phile Lavallée, affords a proof of the foregoing
• I
observation. When he brought out hs Histoire des
rançais, this writer judged Madame de Maintenon
198

MADAME DE MAI1VTE1VO.N'S LETTER 199

very severely. He accused her "of the most com-
plete aridity of heurt, of a spirit of narrow devotion
and mean intrigue." He reproached her with hav-
ing suggested fatal enterprises and wretched appoint-
ments to Louis XIV. "She belittled him," he says,
"she forced mediocre and servile people on him, she
had, in fine, the greatest share in the errors and dis-
asters of the end of the reign."
Some years later, M. Lavallée wrote his fine His-
toire de la maison royale de Salnt-Cyr. In this work
he says: "M«tdame de Maintenon gave Louis XIV.
none but salutary and disinterested counsels, useful
to the State and to the alleviation of the people."
What had happened between the publication of these
two books ? The author had studied. Devoting a
patient research to a work of prevailing interest, he
had succeeded in collecting the letters and writings
of Madame de Maintenon. Thanks to communica-
tions from the Dukes of Noailles, Mouchy, Camba-
cérès, from MM. Feuillet de Conches, Montmerqué,
de Chevry, Honoré Bonhomme, he had been able to
increase the treastu'es of the archives of SaintCyr.
Madame de Maintenou is çne of the historical per-
sonages who have written most. Her Letters, if she
had hOt destroyed a great number of them, would
almost form a library. The archives of Saint-Cyr
alone contain forty volumes of them. And yet the
most curious of the Letters have doubtless not been
preserved. Always prudent, Madame de Maintenon
burned her correspondence with Louis XIV., her bus-

200 THE WOME1V OF VERSAI.L.LES

band; with Madame de Montchevreuil, hor most
intimate friend; with the Bishop of Chartres, her
director. The letters of her youth are rare. Nobody
yet divined the future which Providence was reserv-
ing for ber. M. Lavallée's collection, necessarily
incomplete, is nevertheless an historical monument
of very great value. Two volumes of Letters and
familiar discourses on the education of girls, two
others of historical and edifying Letters addressed
fo the ladies of Saint-Cyr, four volumes of general
correspondence, one of conversations and maxims,
another of miscellaneous writings, and a final one
which includes the Souvenirs of Madame de Caylus,
the Memoirs of the ladies of Saint-Cyr, and those of
]ademoiselle d'Aumale, form the ensemble of a pub-
lication that bas fully illustrated a figure eminently
curious to study.
The collection of Labeaumelle, Voltaire's enemy,
contains, along with many authentic letters, a great
quantity of apocryphal ones. There are changes,
interpolations, additions, and suppressions. Fabri-
cated bits bave been inserted containing clap-trap
phrases, piquant reflections, maxims in the style of
the eighteenth century. M. Lavallée bas round the
means whereby to distinguish the wheat from the
tares. Passing Labeaumelle's collection through
the sieve of a sagacious criticism, he bas succeeded
in verifying the text of the true letters and proving
the apocryphal character of those which are false.
Like the connoisseurs in autographs, he suspected

MADAME DE MAINTENO.N'8 LETTER,.q 201

the striking letters. Falsifiers are almost always
imprudent. They force the note; alld when they
set about inventing a document, they want their
invention fo produce a profound impression.
The correspondence of celebrated persons is gener-
ally much more simple, far less studied than the pre-
tended autographs attributed to them. Oue needs
tobe always on his guard against letters containing
either finished portraits, profound judgments, or his-
torical predictions. They are often signs of falsifica-
tion; and the more striking they seem, the more
carefully should their origin be examined. This is
one of the rules whose strict application would pre-
vent many mistakes. The majority of historical docu-
ments resemble certain inheritances. They should
not be accepted unless on condition of not becoming
liable fo debts in excess of the assets.
Madame de Maintenon's letters deserve the trouble
that has been taken fo establish their dates and
authenticity with exactness. Baron Walckenaër, the
biographer of Madame de Sévigné, assigns to them
the highest rank without hesitation. "Madame de
Maintenon," he says, "is a more finished model of
epistolary style than Madame de Sévigné. The latter
seldom writes except when she feels the need of con-
versing with ber daughter or other persons whom she
loves, in order fo say everything, fo tell the whole
story. Madame de Maintenon, on the contrary, bas
always a distinct end in view in wriiing. The
cleverness, proportion, elegance, and justice of .1 _.

202 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

thoughts, the subtlety of her reflections, enable her to
attain pleasantly the goal she aims at. Her progress
is straight and unfaltering, she follows the road with-
out striking against the bushes, without deviating to
right or left." 1
Such was also the opinion of the first Napoleon.
He greatly preferred the letters of Madame de Main-
tenon to those of Madame de Sévigné, which were,
according to him, "snow eggs, with which one could
surfeit himself without overloading his stomach." In
citing Napoleon's preference, M. Désiré Nisard accepts
it with some reservations. "When Madame de Main-
tenon's letters are full of marrer," says the eminent
critic, "one shares the opinion of the great Emperor.
They possess, to the highest degree, a certain name-
less quality of discretion, simplicity, efficacity. They
do not dazzle by means of feminine versatility; and
the naturalness of them pleases all the more because
it proceeds rather from the reason which disdains
mere prettiness without desiring to dispense with
real graces, than from the wit which plays with noth-
ings. But when marrer is lacking, these letters are
short, dry, constrained." «
If Madame de Maintenon had had literary pre-
occupations, if she had imagined that she was writ-
ing for posterity, she would have produced letters
still more remarl:able. There is neither studied re-

* Walckenaër, Memoires sur Madame de Sévigné, sa vie et ses
gcrits.
$ M. Désiré Nisard, Histoire de la littératurefrançaise.

.MADAME DE .MAI2¢TE2¢02¢'S LETTERS °03

finement nor pretension in ber correspondence. She
writes to edify, to convert, or to console far more
than to please. Her notes to the ladies and young
girls of Saint-Cyr do not outstep this pious limit.
Often Mad,me de Maintenon does not take the pen
herself, but while spnning or knitting she dictates to
the young girls who act as her secretaries, to Made-
moiselle de Loubert, Mademoiselle de Saint-Etienne,
Mademoiselle d'Osmond, or Mtdemoisel]e d'Aumale.
But in the least of these innumerable notes are
always round those qualities of style, sobriety, pro-
portion, conciseness, perfect harmony between the
thought and its expression, which have been admired
by the best judges.
The two women of the seventeent_h_ century whose
letters arêmost celebrated, Madame de S6vign6 and
Madame de Maintenon, felt fo-each other both sym:
pathy and esteem : " We take supper every evening
with Madame Scarron," wrote hIadame de Sévigné
in 1672; "ber disposition is amiable un4 marvel-
lously uprght." One can fancy what conversation
might be between these choice women, both so supe-
rior, so well-instructed, so witty, complementing each
other by their very diversities.
Madame de S6vign6, a strong and richly endowed
nature, a young and beautiful widow, virtuous but
with a free and dauntless humor, a dazzling C61iméne,
sister to Molière as Sainte-Beuve calls ber, a woman
whose character, speech, and writing are alike in-
tense, justifies what was said to her by ber friend

304 TttE WOME.N OF VERSAILLE8

Madame de La Fayette: "You seem born for pleas-
ures, and they seem to have been ruade for you.
Your presence augments entertainments, and enter-
tainments augment your beauty when they form
your surroundings. In a word, joy is the true con-
dition of your soul, and chagrin is more contrary
to you than to any one else." Her image, sparklîng
like ber wit, appears to us in the midst of those
fêtes which ber pen brings to lire again like the
wand of a magician. "What shall I tell you ? mag-
nificences, illuminations, all France, worn out coats
and gold brocade ones, jewels, braziers of tire and
of flowers, heaps of carriages, cries in the streets,
lighted torches, carriages backing and people run
over, in fine, a whirl, dissipation, questions without
answei, compliments without knowing what one
says, civilities without knowing to whom one is
speaking, feet tangled in trains."
Madame de Sévign6, whose letters passed from
hand to hand in drawing-rooms and châteaus, wrote
for the galleries somewhat. She says herself: "My
style is so negligent that if needs a naturally worldly
mind to put up with it."  But that does not pre-
vent her from understanding the worth of ît. When
she lets her pen "trot with the bridle hanging
loose," when she pleases herself by giving ber
daughter "the top of all the panniers, that is to say,
the freshness of ber wit, ber head, ber eyes, ber pen,

1 Letter of December 23 1671.

IADAME DE MAI2TE1VON'S ZETTERS 205

ber irkstand," and "the rest goes as it can," she
very well knows that society dotes on this style in
which all the graces and marvels of the great cen-
tury are reflected as in a looking-glass. Her letters
are the model of chroniques, to employ an expression
used in existing journalism. In the nineteenth cen-
tury, as in the seventeenth, it is a woman who carries
off the palm for this species of literature which
demands so much wit. Madame Emile de Girardin
bas been the Sévigné of our epoch.
Madame de Maintenon could not or would not
aspire to this wholly worldly glory. Far from aim-
ing at effect, she voluntarily diminishes that which
she 1)roduces. Like a true devotee who tones down
the brilliancy of ber glances, she moderates her style
and tempers ber wit. She sacrifices brilliant quali-
ties to solid ones; too much imagination, too much
fervor, alarm ber. SaintCyr must hot resemble the
hStel d'Albret or the hôtel de Richelieu; one must
not speak to nuns as one would to blue-stockings.
Enjoyment, Gallic animation, good-tempered gaiety,
fall to the lot of Madame de Sévigné; what marks
Madame de Maintenon is experience, reason, pro-
fundity. The one laughs from ear to eax; the other
barely smiles. The one bas illusions about every-
thing, admirations which border on naïveté, ecstasies
when in presence of the royal sun; the other never
allows herself to be fascinated either by the King or
the court, by men, women, or things. She has seen
human grandeurs too close at hand hot to understand

Ù6 THE WOMEN OF V.ERSAILLES

their nothingness, and her conclusions bear the im-
print of a profound sadness. Madame de Sdvigng
also bas attacks of melancholy at rimes. But the
cloud passes quickly, and she is again in broad sun-
shine. Gaiety, frank, communicative, radiant gaiety,
is the basis of the character of this woman, more
witty, seductive, amusing, than any other. Madame
de S6vigné shines by imagination ; Madame de Main-
tenon by judgment. The one permits herself to be
dazzled, inebriated; the other always preserves ber
indifference. The one exaggerates the splendors of
the court; the other sees them as they are. The
one is more of a woman ; the other, more of a saint.
To those who still feel an antipathy to Madame de
Maintenon, we venture to offer a word of counsel:
it is, to read before judging. The letters of this ca-
umniated woman are an autobi-gph- whch hos"
s ev-'ry fold of-'er--"ea--rt, ..a.n-''- are .nt less inerês
'om the psychological thanom the historical
-Sînt of view. More reflection tl
isdom than passion, more gravity than charm, mre
uthority than grace, more solidity than brilliancy,
--such are the characteristics of a correspondence
which might justify the expression: The style is the
woman.

XIV

THE OLD AGE OF MADA1M DE MONTESPABI"

-[T is through their pride that those are punished
who bave sinned by pride, and haughty natures
are nearly always those whom Providence condemns
to cruel humiliations. Of ail the favorites of Louis
XIV., Madame de Montespan had been the most
arrogant and despotic ; she was also the most humili-
ated. 1 Unable to accustom herself to ber deposition,
she remained more than ten years at court, although.
she had become burdensome to the King and to her-
self. "People said she was like one of those unhappy
souls who corne back to expiate their faults in the
places where they committed them." 2 There was a
remnant of irony and wrath in the semi-conversion
of this haughty Mortemart. Going to see Madame
de Maintenon one day, she met there the cur6 and
the gray sisters of Versailles, who had corne to attend
a charitable meeting. "Do you know, Madame,"

1 Madame de Montespan et Louis XIV., historical study by
M. Pierre Clément. 1 vol. Didier.
2 Souvenirs of Madame de-Caylus.
2O7

P.08 TH.F, WOM.F,. OF Ir.F, RSAILL.F,8

said she, accosting her," that your ante-chamber is
wonderfully adorned for your prayers ?"
The King continued to see the mother of the legit-
imated children. Every day, after Mass, he went to
spend a few minutes with her, but, as it were, from
duty, hot pleasure. In 1686, at Marly, she said to
him in a moment of exasperation : "I bave a favor to
ask you. Leave to me the care of entertaining the
people of the second carriage and of diverting the
ante-chamber." Between Louis XIV. and his former
mistress there was neither unreserve, confidence, love,
nor friendship. What remained after their liaison
was hot even a souvenir, not even respect, but only
remorse. Devoured by ambition and by scruples,
dragged hither and thither by her passions as if by so
many wild horses, Madame de Montespan was for
many long years the prey of that daily, hourly
struggle which is one of the most painful psycholog-
ical agonies that can be imagined.
Massillon, the Racine of the Christian pulpit, the
moralist preacher, so skilful in sounding the depths
of the female heart, bas described better than any one
else those fitful repentances which entail all the bit-
terness of penitence without giving any of its conso-
lations: "These hearts which the world has always
occupied, and which wish to consecrate to God the
remains of a wholly mundane existence, what a
buckler of brass do they not oppose to grace? . . .
They may seek for the kingdom of God and the
hidden treasure of the Gospel, but itis like tha

OLD AGE OF .MADAME DE MO.N'TESPAN 09

wretched slaves condemned to seek for gold through
hard rocks in toilsome mines; . . . it seems as if in
virtue they were playing another's part; although
they are seeking salvation in good faith, there appears
in them a nameless constraint and strangeness which
make one think they are merely pretending."
Madame de Montespan wanted to leave the court,
but she had not the courage. She could say to her-
self, like Saint Augustine in his Confessions : "These
trifles of trifles, these vanities of vanities, draw me
by my garment of flesh, and whisper in my ear : ' And
are you sending us away ? What, after this moment
shall we be no longer with you?.., for ever?'
This interior struggle was but a duel between myself
and me."
The progress that goes on between the first syml>

toms of repentance and the most complete and
absolute penitence is an interesting one to study.
The former favorite ended by comprehending the
truth of Massillon's words: "What comparison is

there between the frightful remorse of conscience,
that hidden worm which gnaws us incessantly, that
sadness of crime which undermines and brings us
down, that weight of iniquity which overwhelms us,
that interior sword which pierces us, and the lonely
sorrow of penitence which worketh salvation ? My
God! can one complain of Thee when one bas known
the world? And the thorns of the Cross, are they
hot flowers when compared to those that beset the
paths of iniquity ?"

There is an undercurrent of morality in publie
opinion which makes the crowd contemplate with a
sort of pleasure the decay and ruin of certain for-
tunes. Madame de Montespan no longer met friendly
glances in the court which had lately been filled with
her flatterers. Thus it is that vice nearly always
finds its chastisement here below. Short as it is, life
is long enough for the vengeance of God te be accom-
plished, even on the earth.
After long clinging te the wrecks of her fortune
and her beauty, like a shipwrecked sailor te the frag-
ments of his vessel, she who had formerly been
called the mistress "thundering and triumphant," af
last resigned herself te retirement. On March 15,
1691, she caused Bossuer te inform the King that
she had chosen her course of action, and would this
time abandon Versailles forever. Thus the prelate
who had essayed sixteen years before te wrest her
from the clasp of guilty passions was the same te
whom she new had recourse te break the last link of
the chain. And yet she still had hesitations and
regrets. A month after this pious resolution, Dan-
geau wrote: "Madame de Montespan has been af
Clagny for several days, and has gone back te Paris.
She says she has net bsolutely given up the court,
that she will see the King sometimes, and that in
fact they have been somewhat hasty in unfurnishing
ber aprtment." But the favorite had been taken af
her word. Her quarters in the château of Versailles
were thenceforward occupied by the Duke du Maine.

OLD .AGE OF MADAME DE MO_NTESP.A_N

She was never again to see the theatre of ber sorry
triumphs. For the King ber departure was a
deliverance.
Madame de Montespan lived by turns at the abbey
of Fontevrault, where ber sister was abbess; at the
waters of Bourbon, where she went every summer ; at
the ch£teau of Oiron, which she had purchased ; and
at the convent of St. Joseph, situated in Paris on the
site now occupied by the Ministry of War. In this
convent she received tire most notable personages of
the court. The only armchair in her salon was ber
own. " All France went there," says Saint-Simon;
« she spoke to each one like a queen, and as to visits,
she paid none, not even to Monsieur, nor Madame,
nor the grand Mademoiselle, nor to the hôtel Condé."
There was a superbly furnished chamber at the
ch£teau of Oiron, and though the King never went
there, it was called the King's chamber.
From time to time the fallen favorite dreamed still
of that sceptre of the left hand which she had once
wielded with such an audacity of pride. She was by
turns ashamed and proud of being the mother of
legitimated children. But by slow degrees, serious
thoughts displaced those of vanity and spite. The
world was vanquished by heaven. Scandal gave
way to edification. The penitent arrived not only at
remorse but at macerations, fasts, and hair-cloths.
This woman, once so fastidious, so elegant, limited
herself to the coarsest underlinen, and wore a belt
and garters studded with iron points. She came at

212 THE WOME.V OF VER,SAILL.,S

last to give all she had to the poor. For several
hours a day she busied herself in making coarso
clothing for them.
Close by ber château of Oiron she founded a hos-
pital of which she was rather the servant than the
superior. She nursed the sick herself, and dressed
their sores. As M. Pierre Clément bas said so well
in the fine study he bas devoted to ber, the scandal
had been great, the defiance of morality, law, and
the prescriptions of religion insolent and prolonged;
but when they proceed from so haughty a nature,
repentance and humility bave redoubled value. By
ber confessor's orders she resigned herself fo the act
which cost ber most; she wrote a most humbly
worded letter to ber husband, asking his pardon and
offering either to return to him if he would deign to
receive ber, or to go fo any residence which he might
choose to assign for ber. M. le Montespan did hot
even answer.
According to Saint-Simon, the former favorite was
so tormented by the terrors of death in ber latest
years that she hired several women whose only occu-
pation was to watch with ber at night. "She slept
with ber curtains open, plenty of candles in ber
chamber, and ber watchers around ber, whom, every
time she woke, she wanted to find chatting, playing
cards, or eating, so as fo be sure they were hot
drowsy." I bave difficulty in believing such an
assertion to be exact. Madame de Montespan was
too proud for such pusillanimity. Fear did hot

OLD AGE OF MADAME DE MONTESPAN 213

enter ber soul. It is certain that she died with as
much dignity as courage, even by Saint-Simon's own
avowal.
In Ma)-, 1707, when she started for the baths of
Bourbon she was not iii, and yet she had a presenti-
ment that ber end was approaching. Under its
influence she had paid ail the pensions she was in the
habit of giving for two years in advance, and doubled
her customary alms. Hardly had she arrived at
Bourbon when she took to her bed, never again to
leave it. Face to face with death, she neither defied
nor feared it. "Father," she said to the Capuchin
who was assisting ber at the last moments, "exhort
me as an ignorant person, as simply as you can."
After summoning ail her domestics around her, she
asked pardon for the scandal she had given, and
thanked God for permitting her to die in a place
where she was distant from the children of her sin.
When her soul had departed, her body once so
beautiful, so flattered, became "the apprenticeship
of the surgeon of a steward from I don't know
where, who happened to be at Bourbon, and who
wanted to open it without knowing how to begin." 1
There was a dispute between the priests and canons
when the coflin was taken to the church, where it
was to remain until it could be sent to Poitiers and
placed in a family tomb. The death of a woman
who for more than thirty years, from 1660 to 1691,

1 SaintSimon, Votes sur le Journal de Dangeau.

O-14 THE ]|'O.ME1V OF VERSAILLES

had played so great a part at court, caused no im-
pression there. Louis XIV. had long considered his
former mistress as dead to him. Dangeau contented
himself with writing in his journal: "Saturday,
May 28, 1707, at Marly: Before the King went out
hunting it was learned that Madame de Montespan
died yesterday at Bourbon, at three o'clock in the
morning. The King, after chasing a stag, prome-
naded in the gardens until night."
,The Duke du Maine, the Count de Toulouse, and
the Duchesses of Bourbon and Chartres were for-
mally prohibited to wear mourning for their mother.
D'Autin, ber only legitimate child, put on black
garments. But he was too good a courtier to be sad
when the King was not so. He received his sover-
eign at Petit-Bourg a few days afterward, and in
one single night had an alley of chestnut trees,
which was not fo the master's taste, removed. As to
Madame de Montespan, no one mentioned ber name
again. Such is the world. It is not worth the
trouble of loving it.

XV

THE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIo

HE princesses was the title by which the three
legitimated daughters of Louis XIV., one by
Mademoiselle de La Vallière and the other two by
Madame de Montespan, were known at court. The
first of them, born in 1666, married Prince Louis
Armand de Conti. The second, born in 1673,
married the Duke de Bourbon. The third, born in
1677, married the Duke de Chartres who became
Duke of Orleans and regent of France. The Prin-
cess of Conti was more beautiful than Mademoiselle
de La Vallière. The Duchesses of Bourbon and
Chartres had the wit and pride of Madame de
Montespan. The three princesses, who were as
]proud of their birth as if they had been legitimate
daughters, had a great place in the heart of Louis
XIV. The court surrounded them with homage;
and although they did not play an important political
rôle, yet they must figure in the gallery of the women
of Versailles.
The birth of the future Princess of Conti was
veiled _in mystery, Mademoiselle de La Vallière
215

216 THE WO_ME.N OF VERSAILLES

had concealed ber pregnancy. The very night
belote ber delivery she ruade ber appearance in the
royal apartment in presence of the whole court, in a
splendid 0all dress, and with uncovered head. A
year later ber daughter was legitimated by letters
patent which are a sign of the rimes. Concerning
his favorite, Louis XIV. said, in naming ber Duchess:
"Although ber modesty bas frequently opposed out
desire to raise ber sooner to a tank proportionate to
out esteem and ber good qualities, yet the affection
we bave for ber, and justice, do not permit us fo
defer any longer out acknowledgment of merits so
well known to us, nor longer to refuse to nature the
effects of out tenderness for Marie Anne, out natural
daughter." The child was called Mademoiselle de
Blois.
In 1674, the year when the Duchess de La Vallièro
retired to a Carmelite convent, Madame de Sévign
wrote : "Mademoiselle de Blois is a masterpiece ;
the King and every one else is enchanted with ber.
She is a prodigy of attractiveness and grace. She
bas charmed the court by ber beauty from ber earli-
est infancy. People pretend that the Emperor of
Morocco fell madly in love with ber af sight of ber
portrait." She was fifteen years old when, in Jan-
uary, 1680, she married Louis Armand de Bourbon,
Prince de Conti, nephew of the great Condé, who,
like all his family, testified the most lively joy on
occasion of this marriage.
The young married e.)uple seemed delighted with

THE .DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS .XII r. 217

each other. "Their love is like a romance," wrote
Madame de Sgvigng, "and the King is amused by
their inclination." The courtiers went to the Car-
melite convent 1 of the rue Saint-Jacques to pay
their compliments to the former Duchess de La Val-
lière, now Sister Louise of Mercy, who "perfectly
conciliated her style and her black veil, her maternal
tenderness with that of a spouse of Jesus Christ." 
In this mystic asylum where, according to Bossuet's
expression, one is straitened on all sides so as to
respire no longer except towards heaven, the pious
Carmelite, showing herself for the last rime, seemed
the very image of repentance and sanctity.
Madame de Sgvigng thus describes to her daughter
the emotion produced by such an angel: "To my
eyes she still possessed all the charms we saw of old.
Her eyes and her glances are the saine; austerity,
poor nourishment, and curtailed sleep have neither
hollowed nor weakened them. That strange habit
detracts nothing from her grace or good appearance.
She said many kind things to me, and spoke of you
so well and appropriately, all she said being so per-
fectly suitable to her that I think nothing could be
better .... Truly, that habit and that retreat are
a great dignity for her." 3

 The Carmelite convent, situated opposite the Val-de-Grâce,
extended from the rue Saint-Jacques to the rue d'Enfer. It had
two entrances, one on the rue Saint-Jacques and one on the rue
d'Enfer, the latter still existing at No. 67.
 Madame de Svign, Letter of December 29, 1679.
m Madame de Sévign, Letter of January 5, 1680.

218 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

While the saintly Carmelite was expiating in tho
cloister the birth of the Princess de Conti, the young
Princess was dazzling the court by ber beauty, grace,
and spirit. Like nearly all remarkably beautiful
women, she was coquettish. Her husband managed
her badly. He surrounded ber with the most fash-
ionable young people at the court, which naturally
gave occasion for scandal. In 1685 she had the
small-pox, and the Prince de Conti, having shut him-
self up with ber, took the disease and died of it
suddenly. "What a death was thatof the Prince
de Conti! After having escaped all the infinito
perils of the war in Hungary, he bas just died here
of a malady which he scarcely had. He is the son of
a saintly man and a saintly woman, and in conse-
quence of wrongly directed thoughts, he bas played
the fool and debauchee, and died without confes-
sion." 1
A widow at twenty and easily consolable, the
young Princess continued to be the ornament of
Versailles. Monseigneur, as the Dauphin was styled,
was continually in ber apartments; Versailles became
rejuvenated in this little haunt of pleasure. There
was nothing but "promenades, rendezvous, love let-
ters, serenades, and all that was found delightful in
the good old times." 2 It was there that Monseign-
eur became acquainted with Mademoiselle Choin,

Madame de Svign, Letter of November 24, 168lZ
Madame de Svign, Letter to Bmsy.

THE DAUGHTER8 OF LOUIS XIV. 219

who was maid of honor to the Princess. According
to Madame de Caylus, this young lady's mind was
hOt calculated to shine anywhere except in an ante-
chamber, and was capable of nothing better than
describing what she had seen. "And yet," she
adds in ber Souvenirs, "this same Mademoiselle
Choin carried off from the most beautiful princess in
the world the heart of M. Clermont, st that time an
officer of the guards. Monseigneur had a particu-
larly good opinion of him, and had introduced him
to the Countess de Conti, whom he made such love to
that he inspired ber with a rather lively inclination."
The King, having been informed of this intrigue
by means of letters intercepted at the postoffice, sent
for his daughter, and showed ber not only those sho
had written to Clermont, but those which the latter
had addressed to Mademoiselle Choin.
"The Princess thought she would die," says Saint-
Simon. "She threw herself at the King's feet, bathed
them with ber tears, and could hardly articulate.
There was nothing but sobs, pardons, despairs, rages,
and entreaties for justice and vengeance; she was
speedily heard." Clermont and Mademoiselle Choin
had to leave the court and resign their appointments.
But Mademoiselle Choin remained the favorite of
Monseigneur. 1 This happened in 1694.
The Princess de Conti resumed her accustomed

1 Msdemoiselle Chotn presided st Meudon over the little court
of Monseigneur, who slwsys remsined fsithful to her. It ls even
©laimed thst he secretly msrried her.

220 THE IVOMEN OF VER8AILL,S

dissipations and amusements: pleasure parties, balls,
hunts, cards, collations at the Trianon or the Ména-
gerie, night prolnenades in the gardens. Meanwhile,
Sister Louise of Mercy was redoubling her austeri-
ries. "Her natural delicacy had suffered infinitely
from the mal severity of her corporal and spiritual
penitence as well as from that of .a very sensitive
heart which she concealed as well as she could ....
She died with every mark of great sanctity in the
midst of nuns to whom ber gentleness and her vir-
tues had given delight." 1 The Princess de Conti,
notified too late, only reached the Carmelite convent
of the rue Saint-Jacques in time to see ber mother
breathe her last? At first she seemed very much
afflicted; but Saint-Simon says she was quickly con-
soled. The whole court paid ber visits of condolence.
The children of Madame de Montespan, who had
lost their mother three years belote, were greatly
mortified by these public visits, seeing that in a par-
allel case they had not dared to receive any such.
"They were still more so," adds Saint-Simon, "when
they saw Madame, the Princess de Conti, contrary to
all custom, drape ber apartment in mourning for a
simple nun, although she was ber mother,--they
who had none, and who for that reason had not
dared even to wear the least sign of mourning on
the death of lIadame de Montespan. Between the

i Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon.
 Mademoiselle de La Vallière died in Jin 1710 aftr aix ye&ra
in the cloister.

THE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS .XllZ, 221

situation of the Princess de Conti and that of the
two other legitimated daughters of Louis XIV. there
existed this difference: the first was designated in
her letters of legitimation as the daughter of Made-
moiselle de La Vallière, while in those of the other
two their mother's name was not mentioned. This
is why Saint-Simon, distinguishing between the
simple and the double adultery, says that the P,'in-
cess de Conti had a named and recognized mother,
while the Duchesses of Bourbon and of Chartres had
not.
The Duchess of Bourbon, who was at first called
Mademoiselle de Nantes, had been legitimated in the
year of her birth by letters patent in which Louis
XIV. without naming the mother, had contented
himself by alleging "the tenderness which nature
gave him for his children, and many other reasons
which considerably increased these sentiments in
him." The young Princess was still a little girl
when she married, in 1685, the Duke de Bourbon,
grandson of the great Condé.
"It was a ridiculous thing," says the Marquis de
Souches, "to see these two marionettes marry; for the
Duke de Bourbon was excessively small. It was
feared he would remain a dwarf, and they were
obliged to wait until July before Mademoiselle de
lantes would be twelve years old."
Madame de Caylus says that the great Condé and
his son neglected no means of testifying their joy, as
they had omitted nothing to bring about this mat-

2 THE VOM.E1V OF V.EBSAILLE8

riage. As she grew up, the Duchess became very
pretty. Saint-Simon praises "her figure formed by
the tenderest loves, and her mind ruade to enjoy
them to her liking, but without being dominated by
them." But he represents ber at the same time as
egoistic, deceitful, and satirical. "She was," he says,
"the siren of the poets, she had all their charms and
all their perils." She loved pleasure, luxury, and ex-
travagance. Thanks to Madame de Maintenon, she
obtained in 1700 the payment of her debts by the King,
who kept her secret from ber father-in-law and ber
husband. If Saint-Simon and Madame de Caylus are
to be believed, ber conduct was hot exemplary. She
may bave been the mistress of the second Prince de
Conti, 1 he who had been elected King of Poland in
1697, after having fought valiantly at Fleurus, Stein-
kerque, Nerwinde, and in Hungary, but who was
unable to take possession of his crown.
"The Prince de Conti," says Madame de Caylus,
"opened his eyes to the charms of Madame the Duch-
ess by dint of being told not to look at ber; he loved
ber passionately, and if, on ber part, she loved any-
thing, it was certainly him, whatever may bave hap-
pened since .... This affair was conducted with
such admirable prudence that they never gave any
one any hold over them." According to Saint-Simon,
the Prince de Conti was "perfectly happy with

1 François Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conti. Born in 1664,
he had married in 1688 the sister of the Duke de Bourbon grxl-
dauhter of the great Cond

TttE DAUGttTERS OF LOUIS XII7". 223

Madame the Duchess, although M. the Duke was
very singular and strangely jealous."
The Duke died on Shrove Tuesday in the year
1709. "Madame the Duchess, though surrounded
by finery, masquerading habits, and a crowd of
invited guests, lost none of ber presence of mind.
With her tearful ways she extorted from the King,
though against his will and tardily enough, an
income of 30,000 livres. Then ber tears dried up,
and her good humor returned. She received every-
body in stte. She was on her bed, in a widow's
gown, bordered and lined with ermine. ''1 The
Prince de Conti died almost at the same time as the
Duke. "Madame the Duchess," says Saint-Simon,
" was the only one to whom he had not been incon-
stant. He would have paid ber the homage of his
grandeur, and she would have shone by his lustre.
What disheartening memories, with no consolation
but Lassé junior! 2 For want of a better she became
inordinately attached to him, and the attachment has
lasted for thirty years .... She was hot ruade for
tears. She wanted to forget her troubles, and to do
so, plunged first into amusements and then into pleas-
u_res, even to the most extreme indelicacies, consid-
ering her age and condition. She tried to drown
ber vexations in them, and she succeeded." Saint-

1 Memoirs of Saint-Simon.
 Lassé was a brigadier of infantry. According to Saint-Simon
"he became openly the toaster of Madame the Duchess, and th«
director of her affairs. ç

224 THE WOME.N OF V.ERSAILLES

Simon's exaggerations are to be suspected, however;
he is always malevolent, and often unjust.
The suspicions of the ruthless Duke and peer con-
stantly hover over the private lives of two of the
daughters of Louis XIV. But he spares the third
one, at ail eveuts, and though he accuses her of an
ahnost satanic pride, he insinuates nothing against
the purity of her morals. This Princess was at first
styled Mademoiselle de Blois (the saine name as the
daughter of Mademoiselle de La Vallière). She was
fourteen when she was married, in 1692, to the Duke
de Chartres, son of Monsieur, Duke of Orleans.
Saint-Simon has described the exasperation of the
young Prince's mother, furious at seeing ber son
espouse a bastard: "She strode up and down, hand-
kerchief in hand and weeping unrestrainedly, talking
rather loud, gesticulating, and reminding one of Ceres
after the abduction of Proserpine .... People gen-
erally going to await the breaking up the council and
the King's Mass in the gallery,  Mdame went there ;
her son approached ber, as he did every day, to kiss
ber hand. At that moment Madame gave him so
resounding a slap that it could be heard several paces
off, and which, in presence of the whole court, cgv-
ered the poor Prince with confusion, and filled the
very numerous spectators, of whom I was one, with
prodigious astonishment."

 The Gallery of Mirrors which the King pssed through every
morning on his way to the chapel after having presided at tho
linistril Coun¢il.

THE D.AUGHT.ERS OF LOUI .,_vIV. 25

Let us note, in passing, that in a letter to the
Rhinegrave Louise, Madame says that a rumor is
in circulation that she had slapped ber son in the
face, but that itis absolutely false. The marriage
was celebrated with great pomp. Louis XIV. was
gratified to find the great lords and ladies rivalling
each other in magnificence. There was a great ball
at Versailles where the Duke of Burgundy danced
for the first rime, and it was the King of England
who gave the bridegroom his shirt. A month later,
March 19, 1692, the Duke du Mairie, the eldest of
the children of Louis XIV. by Madame de Mont-
espan, married Mademoiselle de Charolais, daughter
of the Prince and granddaughter of the great Condé.
The legitimated thus round themselves established
in the court of Versailles which they could not bave
left without sadness, for it was the most brilliant
and most envied abode in Europe.
Louis XIV. who had originally said concerning
the offspring of adultery: "These persons must never
marry," caused them to make magnificent marriages.
Curious thing, the Duchess of Chartres naïvely
fancied that she had honored the King's nephew by
marrying him. Madame wrote on this head: "My
son's wife thinks she did him a great honor in mar-
rying him. She says he is only the nephew of the
King, while she is his daughter. This is to forger
that one is also the son of his mother. Never would
she comprehend that." Duclos says that people
jocosely compared her to Minerva who, recognizing

2 THE WOME OF VERSAILL:8

no mother, prided herself on being the daughter of
Jupiter. Haughty as she was, this Princess was
timidity itself in presence of Louis XIV. "The
King could make her faint with a single severe look,
and Madame de Maintenon, too, perhaps;
events she trembled before ber, and about the most
ordinary things, and in public she never replied to
them without stammering and looking frightened.
I say replied, for to address the King first was be-
yond her strength."
none the less a woman of great intelligence, "having
a natural eloquence,
fluency and singularity in the choice of terms which
always surprised one, together with that manner
peculiar to Madame de Montespan and her sisters
and which was transmitted to none but those inti-
mate with her or to those whom she had brought
up."9. In spire of all ber intelligence, the Duchess
was unable either to gain the attachment of her hus-
band or to give a good education to ber daughter,
who married in 1710 the Duke de Berry, third son of
the grand Dauphin.
Saint-Simon, whose tongue is always envenomed,
bas ill-treated no vom, i1 his Memoirs so much as
this poor Duchess de Berry who, a widow at seven-
teen, died at twcnty-four. If one must believe the
spiteful Duke and peer, she was a bad wife, a bad

1 Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon.
2 ldem.

THE DA UGHTERS OF LOUIS .XIV. 227

daughter, and a bad Christian; she got drunk; she
mocked at religion; and she wanted La Haye, ber
husband's equerry, to elope with her. "She was a
prodigy of art, pride, ingratitude, and folly, and also
of debauchery and stubbornness." The Duchess was
very wrong, without any doubt; but we incline to
think that Saint-Simon exaggerates. Possibly she
was neither better nor worse than many women of
her rime. Itis certain, at any rate, that she grieved
her mother, already much tormented by the rivalries
and dissensions of the court.
The three daughters of Louis XIV. were hot
always on good terms with each other. There was
a time when their quarrels multiplied to such a
degree that the King threatened, if they continued,
to intern all three of them in their country houses.
The menace was effectual, and thenceforward they
disputed on the sly. Louis XIV. loved his daugh-
ters greatly in spire of their defects. He was at
the same rime a just king and an affectionate
father. He showed a real tenderness, a solici-
tude, and a devotion in his treatment of them which
never altered. When they were ill he was grieved
and troubled; he would rise several rimes in the
night to go and visit them. Madame de Caylus
relates that the Duchess of Bourbon having been
seized with small-pox at Fontainebleau, Louis XIV.
was absolutely determined to go to see her. The
Prince (the great Cond6) stood at the door to pre-
vent him from entering. There a great struggle

298 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILL.E8

took plce between paternal love and the zeal of a
courtier, a struggle "very glorious for Madame the
Duchess." Louis XIV. was the stronger and went
in, in spire of the resistance of the great Condé.
Thus behaved this King who can only be treated as
an egotist by those who know him badly or who do
hot know him at all.

XVI

THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY

HE court was all agog because a little girl of
eleven years had just arrived in France. This
child was Marie-Adélaïde, the future Duchess of Bur-
gundy, daughter of Victor Amadeus II., Duke of
Savoy. On Sunday, Novernber 4, 1696, the town of
Montargis was en fête. The bells were ringing with
ail their rnight. Louis XIV., leaving Fontaine-
bleau in the rnorning, had corne fo rneet the young
Princess destined to espouse his grandson, and ail
eyes were bent on the first interview between ber
and the Sun-King. He received her as she was
alighting from the carriage, and said fo Dangeau:
"Will you allow me fo fill your post for to-
day?" (Dangeau was chevalier of honor fo the
Princess.)
The newcorner charrned the King frorn the first
moment by the distinction of her rnanners, her native
prettiness, her little responses full of grace and
spirit. Louis XIV. embraced ber in the carriage;
she kissed his hand several rimes while ascending the
staircase that led to the apartrnent she was fo occupy.
229

O30 THE WOME1V OF VER8AILLE8

When the King returned to his chamber, Dangeau
took the liberty of asking him whether he were con-
tented with the Princess. "I ara too much so; I can
scarcely contain my joy." Then, turning toward
Monsieur he added: "How I wish that his poor
mother could be here a few moments fo witness the
joy we are having." He wrote afterwards to Madame
de Maintenon: "She let me speak first, and after-
wards she answered me very well, but with a little
embarrassment that would have pleased you. I led
her fo her chamber through the crowd, letting them
see ber from rime to rime by bringing the torches
near ber face. She stood this walk and the lights
with grace and modesty. She bas the best grace
and the most beautiful shape that I ever saw, dressed
fit fo be painted and ber hair also, very bright and
beautiful eyes with admirable black lashes, com-
plexion very smooth, white and red as one could
wish, and a great quantity of the finest fait hair
that one ever saw... She has failed in noth-
ing, and has conducted herself as you might bave
done."
Through her mother, Marie-Ad6laïde was the
granddaughter of that beautiful Henrietta of Eng-
land whose life and death bave been immortalized
by Bossuer in ber funeral oration. She was about
fo revive the charm of this greatly regretted princess,
and ber presence at Versailles renewed the joy and
animation of happier days. She was installed, im-
mediately on ber arrival, in the chamber formerly

THJE DUCHJESS OF BURGUNDY 23]

occupied by the Queen and afterwards by the Bava-
rian dauphiness. 1
The King made ber a present of the beautiful
meuagerie of Versailles which is opposite the Tria-
non palace. ever was a grandfather more tenderly
affectionate towards his granddaughter. He took
pains to contrive amusements and recreations for ber.
Madame (the Princess Palatine) wrote, ovember 8,
1696: "Every one is becoming a child again. The
Princess d'Harcourt and Madame de Pontchartrain
played at blindman's buff day before yesterday with
the Priucess and Monsieur the Dauphin; Monsieur,
the Princess de Conte, Madame de Ventadour, my
two other ladies and myself played it yesterday."
Naturally, Madame de Maintenon was charged
with finishing the education of the little Princess.
The first rime she took her to Saint-Cyr she had her
received with great ceremony. The superior com-
plimented ber; the community, in long mantles,
awaited ber at the door of the cloister; all the pupils
were ranged in double lines through which she
passed on ber way to the church; little girls of ber
own age recited a dialogue tinctured with delicate
praise. The Princess was delighted and asked to
corne again. Afterwards Madame de Maintenon
took ber regularly to Saint-Cyr two or three rimes a
week, to spend the entire day and follow the lessons

Room No. 115 of the Notice du Musée de Versailles, by Eudore
Souli.

232 THE WOME.N" OF VER8AILLES

of the red class. There was no more etiquette.
Marie-Adélaïde wore the saine uniform as the pupils,
and was called Mademoiselle de Lastic. "She was
good, affable, gracious to everybody, occupying her-
self with the different affdrs of the ladies, and with
all the works and studies of the pupils; subjecting
herself frankly to all the practices of the house, even
to silence; running and l»la,ing with the reds in the
long alleys of the garden; going with them to choir,
confession, and catechism. At other rimes she put
on the habit of the ladies, and did the honors of the
house to some illustrious visitor, notably the Queen
of England." 1
Louis XIV., charmed with the Princess, decided
that she should be mtrried the very day she was
twelve years old. December 7, 1797, she espoused
Louis of France, Duke of Burgundy, who was fifteen
and a half years old. The bridegroom wore a black
mantle embroidered with gold, and a white doublet
with diamond buttons; the mantle was lined with
rose satin. The bride had a robe and under petticoat
of cloth of silver, bordered with precious stones, and
she wore the crown diamonds. 2 Cardinal de Coislin
gave the young couple the nuptial benediction in
the chapel of Versailles. After Mass there was a
grand banquet for the royal family in the room known
as the ante-chamber of the Queen's apartment. 8

Memoires des Dames de Saint-Cyr.
Letter of the lrincess Palatine December 7 1697.
Room o. 117 of the 5otice du Musée.

TtLE DUCtilE88 OF BURGU.NDY 233

In the evening the court assembled in the Salon of
Peace 1 to witness the fireworks set off at the end of
the Swiss lake, and then to take sui)i)er served, like
the banquet, in the ante-chamber of the Queen's ai)art-
ment. After sui)i)er they I)assed on into the sleep-
ing chamber of the Duchess, u where there was a bed
of green velvet embroidered with gold and silver,
which was blessed by Cardinal de Coislin. A
moment later, the King sent all the men out of the
room. The Duke of Burgundy disrobed belote the
ladies, and the Queen of England handed him his
shirt. As soon as the couple had been I)ut to bed,
Louis XIV. summoned the ambassador of Savoy and
showed him that they were lying down. The am-
bassador immediately sent a gentleman to carry this
news to Victor Amadeus.
Nevertheless, this marriage, concluded amidst so
many si)lendors, was as yet merely for form's sake,
seeing thut the I)air were so extremely youthful.
The King would hot I)ermit his grandson to kiss
even the tip of the Duchess's finger until they should
actually corne together. Hence the young Duke
arose again at the end of fifteen minutes, dressed
himself in the chamber and returned to his own room
through the hall of the guurds.
There was a grand ball in the Gallery of Mirrors,
December 11. The I)yramids of candles glittered even

Room :No. 114 of the _hrotice du Musée.
Room :No. 115 of the Votice du

°34 THE WOME. OF VERSAILLES

more than the lustres and girandoles. Louis XlV.
had said he would be pleased te have the court display
great luxury, and himself, though for a long while
he had worn none but very simple costumes, had put
on a superb one. It was who should surpass the
others in richness and invention. There was hardly
silver and gold enough te be had. The King, who
had encouraged all these expenses, said notwith-
standing, that he could net understand how husbands
could be foolish enough te let themselves be ruined
by their wives' dresses.
Two days after the marriage the Duchess wanted
te show herself in state dress te ber friends at Saint-
Cyr. She was all in white, and ber robe was se
heavily embroidered with silver that she could hardly
bear the weight of it. The community received the
Princess in great pomp and conducted ber te the
church, where hymns were chanted.
The separation of the young spouses lasted for two
years after the ceremony of their marriage, and,
according te Dangeau's journal, did net end until
toward the close of 1699. Until then the Duke
of Burgundy came te see the Duchess every day.
They were even allowed te chat together, but there
were always ladies in the room during their inter-
views.
The amiable Princess is new one of the most at-
tractive of women. Without ber all would wither at
this court, which would resemble a magnificent con-
vent. The flowers would be less fait, the fields less

THE DUCHESS OF BUI?GU.NDY °35

gay, the streams less clear. Thanks to ber seduc-
tive charm everything revives, all lights up under the
rays of a vernal sun. She loves Louis XIV. sin-
cerely. One cannot approach this exceptional man,
for whom the word prestige would have to be in-
vented if it did not exist, and vho is as affectionate,
good, and affable as he is majestic and imposing.
The adlniration professed for him by the young Prin-
cess is sincere. Grateful and flattered by the kind-
ness he shows ber, she venerates him as the most
glorious representative of divine right, and while
she venerates she amuses him. She flings her arms
about his neck at any time, she sits down on his
knees, she diverts him by every sort of badinage, she
looks at his papers, she opens and reads his letters in
his presence. A continual succession of pleasure
parties and entertainments goes on. Followed by a
train of women of tventy, the Princess loves to sail
in a gondola on the grand canal of the Park of Ver-
sailles, and to remain there several hours of the night,
sometimes until sunrise. Hunts, collations, come-
dies, serenades, illuminations, sailing parties, tire-
works, every day a new diversion is organized.
The King wishes that the Duchess of Burgundy
should please herself in this court of which she is the
ornament and the hope. She must smooth out the
wrinkles of the monarch, who is weary of fame and
pleasures. She must be the good genius, the en-
chantress of Versailles. The mirrors of the great
gallery must reflect her splendid toilets, her dazzling

36 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

ornaments. She must appear in the gardens like an
Armida, in the forests like a nymph, on the water
like a siren.
In the hall of the Queen's guards 1 there may be
seen at present a full length portrait of the Princess.
She is standing, dressed in a robe of cloth of silver,
and holds in her left hand a bouquet of orange flowers.
A woman in Polish costume is holding up the train
of her lilied mantle. In front of her a cupid is hold-
ing a cushion on which flowers are lying. At the
back of the picture one sees a garden and a pedestal
on which is the signature of the painter: Santerre,
1709. What the artist has done so well with his
brush Saint-Simon has done still better with his pen.
The sarcastic Duke and peer becomes an enthusiastic
admirer, a poet, when he describes the charms of the
Princess : her eyes the most beautiful and speaking in
the world, her gallant, gracious, majestic pose of the
head, her expressive smile, ber gait like that of a
goddess on the clouds. He admires her moral quali-
ties no less, even while finding defects in her. It
pleases him to recognize that she is sweet, accessi-
ble, candid, though with due reserve, compassionate,
grieved to cause the least sadness, full of considera-
tion for all who corne near her, gracious to those
about her, kind to her domestics, friendly to her
ladies, and the soul of the court which adores her;
"all is lacking to every one in her absence, all is

Room No. 118 of the Notice du Musée.

replenished by her presence, her extreme kindness
makes her infinitely depended on, and her manners
attach all heats."
Nevertheless calumny does hot spare ber. People
accuse ber in a whisper with certain inconsistencies
which malice bruits about and exaggerates. They
go so far as to pretend that two loyers, MM. de Mau-
levrier and de Nangis are extremely well treated
by ber. They wish to discover serious faults in
what is nothing but the desire to please, natural to
ail pretty women. Madame de Caylus says concern-
ing the passion attributed to the Duchess for M. de
Nangis: "I am convinced that this intrigue was car-
ried on by looks, or at most by letters. I ara per-
suaded of this for two reasons, one that Madame the
Dauphiness was too well guarded, and the other that
Nangis was too much in love with another woman
who watched him closely, and who bas said to me
that at the rimes when he was suspected of being
with Madame the Dauphiness she was very sure that
he was hot, because he was with ber. It was much
rather a gallantry than a passion." S-urrounded by
a court of witty, gossiping, and often light young
women, the Duchess of Burgundy must more than
once bave been attacked by malevolent insinuations
and the little perfidies, which the jealousy inherent
in the feminine characteraliows-itself against prin-
cesses as well as against private persons.  The
Duchess understood it perfectly and was moved and
affiicted by it.

238 HE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES

Other causes for sadness threw their shadows over
an existence apparently so fair and joyous. Victor
Amadeus had quarrelled with France, and the house
of Savoy was incurring the greatest dangers. The
Duchess of Burgundy was obliged to conceal her sen-
timents for her former country in the depths of her
heart, but the more necessary it was to hide them the
more vivacious they became. What a grief to know
that her pregnant mother, her infirm grandmother,
ber sick brothers, and the Duke, her father, were
wandering on the Piedmont road, threatened with
utter ruin. June 21, 1706, she wrote to her grand-
mother, 1 the widow of Charles Emmanuel : "Judge
what is my anxiety about all that is happening to
you, loving you so tenderly, and having all the affec-
tion possible for my father, my mother, and my
brothers. I cannot see them in such an unfortunate
condition without having tears in my eyes .... I
am in a sadness which no amusement can diminish,
and which will not depart, my dear grandmother,
until your sorrows do .... Send me news of all
that is dearest to me in the world." u
The Duchess of Burgundy suffered simultaneously

1 Marie-Jeanne-Baptiste, called Madame Royale, daughter of
Charles Amadeus of Savoy and Elizabeth of Vendôme, espoused
in 1665 the Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel II., father of Victor
Amadeus II.
2 See the interesting correspondence of the Duchess of Bur-
gundy and her sister the Queen of Spain, wife of Philip r., pub-
lished-with a very good prefce, by Madame the Countess Della
Roc

TH.E .DUCHESS OF BURGU.NDY 39

from the disasters of both ber countries, Savoy and
France. "Make us some saints to obtain peace for
us," said Madame de Maintenon to the inmates of
Saint-Cyr. The Duchess, as Labeaumelle remarks,
exhibited in the perilous circumstances of the coun-
try "the dignity of the first woman of the State, the
sentiments of a Roman marron for Rome, and the
agitations of a soul which desired the good with an
ardor beyond ber age."
The hour of great sorrows had arrived. As M.
Capefigue bas said so well: "The difficult rime for
a loowerful and fortunate King is old age. Though
the head remain firm, the arms grow feeble, gar-
lands wither, even laurels take a grayish tint. Peo-
ple respect you still, but they do not love you any
more; cocked bats with waving plumes bring out
the wrinkles of the face and the lines of the fore-
head; the gold-headed cane is no longer a sort of
sceptre, but a staff which sustains the feeble legs and
the stooping body." For the Duchess of Burgundy
the aging Louis XIV. preserved all his prestige.
She loved him sincerely. "The public," says Ma-
dame de Caylus, "bas difficulty in comprehending
that princes act simply and naturally, because they
do hot see them near enough at hund to judge, and
because the marvellous that they are always seeking is
never round in simple conduct and orderly senti-
ments. Hence they wish to believe that the Duchess
resembled her father, and that at the age of eleven,
when she came to France, she was as crafty and

40 THE WOME_W OF VERSAILLES

politic as he was, and affected for the King and
Madame de Maintenon a tenderness she did not
possess. I, who have had the honor of seeing her
very near, judge otherwise. I have seen her weep-
ing in such good faith over the great age of these
two persons, who she thought must die before ber,
that I cannot doubt her tenderness for the King."
Louis XIV., who knew the human heart, perceived
with Iris usual perspicacity that the Duchess of Bur-
gundy had a sincere affection for him. It was on
that account that he displayed an exceptional attach-
ment for her. Like a rose blooming in a cemetery,
the young and enchanting Princess charmed and con-
soled the sorrowful years of the great King. It was
the last smile of fortune, the last ray of sunlight.
But alasI the fair rose was to bloom but a day, and
yet a little longer and all would be enshrouded in
gloom.
Since 1711, when Monseigneur died, the Duke of
Burgundy had been Dauphin, and Saint-Simon re-
ports that the Duchess said, in speaking of the ladies
who criticised her: "They will have to reckon with
me, and I will be their queen." "Alas!" he adds,
"she believed it, the charming Princess, and who
would hot have believed it with her?" And yet,
according to the Princess Palatine, she was convinced
that her end was near. Madame thus expresses her-
self: "A learned astrologer of Turin, having drawn
the horoscope of Madame the D,uphiness, had pre-
dicted to her all that would happen to her, and that

THE DUCHESS OF BURGUVDY 241

she would die in her twenty-seventh year. She often
spoke of it. One day she said to ber husband: ' See,
the time is coming when I must die. You cannot
remain without a wife on account of your rank and
your devotion. Tell me, I entreat you, whom you
will marry?' He answered: ' I hope God will neve,"
punish )ne enough to let me see you die ; and if this
misfortune must befall me, I shall never remarry,
for I should follow you to the grave in eight days.
• . .' While the Dauphiness was still in good health,
fresh and gay, she often said: ' Well, I must rejoice,
because I cannot rejoice long, for I shall die this
year.' I thought it was a pleasantry; but the thing
was only too real. When she fell ill she said she
would not recover."
The nearer the Dauphiness approached the fatal
time the better she grew. One might have thought
she wanted to deepen the grief that would be caused
by her premature death. The Princess Palatine,
ordinarily so malevolent, so sarcastic, avows it her-
self: "Having," says she, "enough intelligence to
note ber faults, the Dauphiness could not do other
than try to correct them ; this, in fact, is what she
did, and to such a point as to excite general astonish-
ment. She continued thus to the end."
Madame the Viscountess de Noailles  has said in

 Lettres inédites de la Duchesse de Bourgogne, preceded by a
short notice of ber life by Madame the Viscountess de loailles.
A volume of fifty pages of which only a small number of copies has
been printed.

242 THE WOMEY OF VERSAILLES

the most touching way: "From rime to time history
offers us attractive personages who move the reader
even to affection .... Providence frequently with-
draws them from the world in their youth, still
adorned with the charms which rime removes, and the
hopes which it might have realized. The Duchess of
Burgundy was one of these graceful apparitions."
Attacked with a terrible malady which was, it
appears, the measles, but which was attributed to
poison, the Duchess was taken avay in a few days
from the King of whom she was the consolation, the
husband xvho idolized her, the court whose ornament
she was, and France of which she was the hope. She
died with equal dignity and courage in the most
religious sentiments.
It was in her bedroom at Versailles, 1 on Friday,
February 12, 1712, between eight and nine in the
evening, that she breathed her last. Almost exactly
two years belote, in the saine room, she had brought
into the world the prince who was to be called Louis
XV.  Her husband's grief was such that he could
hot survive a wife so beloved. Six days afterward
he folloved her to the tomb. " France," cries Saint-
Simon, "fell at last beneath this final chastisement.
God had shown her a prince whom she did not
deserve. The earth was not worthy of him; he died
ripe already for a blissful eternity." The very day

Room No. 115 of the Wotice du Musée.
Louis XV. was born February 5, 1710.

THE .DUCHESS OF BURGU1V.DY 243

of the Duke of Burgundy's death Madame wrote:
"I am so overwhelmed that I cannot recover; I
scarcely know what I tm saying. You who have a
good heart will certainly pity us, for the sadness that
prevails here cannot be described."
Saint-Simon pretends that the sorrow caused Louis
XIV. by the death of the Duchess of Burgundy "was
the only real on'e he ever had in his life." This is not
exact. The gre,t King h,d profoundly regretted his
mother, and Madame (the Princess P,l,tine) thus
expresses herself concerning the grief that over-
whelmed him in the death of his only son, the grand
Dauphin: "I saw the King yesterdy at eleven
o'clock; he is a prey to such affliction tht he would
soften a rock; he does not fret, however, he speaks
to everyone with a resigned sadness, and gives his
orders with great firmness, but the tears corne into
his eyes every moment, and he stifles his sobs." 1
Such ws the man whom superficial minds character-
ize as egoistic and insensitive.
On February 0.2, 1712, the bodies of the Duchess
and the Duke of Burgundy were borne from Ver-
sailles to Saint-Denis on a single bier. The Dau-
phin, their eldest son, died the following March 8.
He was rive years and some months old. Thus the
father, the mother, and the eldest son disappeared
within twenty-four days. Three dauphins had died
in a single year.

 Letter of April 16, 1711.

44 THE WOMEN OF VER8AILLE8

These events, so horrible in themselves, were ruade
still more so by the widely prevalent false idea that
these premature deaths were the result of poison.
The Duke of Orleans was most perfidiously and
unjustly accused of being the author of these crimes,
and efforts were made to induce Louis XIV. to enter-
tain this abominable suspicion. With the Duchess
of Burgundy "were eclipsed joy, pleasures, amuse-
ments even, and every sort of favors .... If the
court existed after her, it was only to languish." 1
And yet, under the weight of so many trials the
great soul of Louis XIV. was not enfeebled.
"Amidst the lugubrious dgbris of his august house,
Louis remains firm in the faith. God had breathed
upon his numerous posterity, and in an instant it was
effaced like characters written on the sand. Of all
the princes who had surrounded him, and who formed
as it were the rays and the glory of his crown, there
remained but one feeble spark even then on the point
of being extinguished. He adores Him who dis-
poses of crowns and sceptres, and perhaps he sees in
these domestic losses the mercy which is completing
the effacement from the book of the Lord's justice
the traces of his former guilty passions. ''2
All France was in despair. "This time of deso-
lation," says Voltaire, "left so profound an impres-
sion in hearts that, during the minority of Louis XV.

i Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon.
2 Massillon, Orasion funèbre de Louis le Grand.

THE DUCHE88 OF EUtlGUNDY 245

I have seen many persons who could hot speak of
these losses without shedding tears." 1
M. Michelet, who cannot be accused of exaggerated
admiration for the great century, is himself affected
while relating the death of the charming Duchess
of Burgundy. "The court," he says, "was literally
as if stunned by the blow. One still weeps, a hun-
dred and fifty years afterward, in reading the heart-
rending pages in which Saint-Simon records his
grief." 2
Duclos bas claimed, without indicating the source
whence he obtained his information, that on the
death of the Duchess of Burgundy, Madame de
Maintenon and the King found in a casket that had
belonged to the Princess, papers which extorted from
the King the exclamation: "The little rogue be-
trayed us." From such a speech, so unlikely from
the mouth of Louis XIV., Duclos infers a corre-
spondence in which the daughter of Victor Amadeus
had surrendered State secrets to him. This we
believe to be one of those numerous hearsays, from
which history is too often written. The archives of
Turin bave preserved no trace of this pretended
correspondence, which is neither true nor probable.
Assuredly the Duchess of Burgundy did not forget
her native land. But after bidding adieu to Savoy,
she had no longer any country but France.

a VoltaSre, qiècle de Louis XII r.
t Miohelet, Louis .XIIE. et 16 duc d« lourgog.

246 THE IVOME_N OF VERSAILLES

Doubtless, Italy may count among the fairest
pearls of her casket those two intelligent and allur-
ing sisters who both died .so prematurely and left
behind them so touching a remembrauce : the Duch-
ess of Burgundy and her sister the Queen of Spain,
the valiant consort of Philip V. But the greater
part of the Duchess of Burgundy's destiny was ful-
filled in France, and her portrait must figure in the
château of Versailles.
How many rimes in 1871, when the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs was, so to say, encamped in the midst
of the Queen's apartments, did we evoke the souvenir
of the charming Princess in this chamber where she
slept from the time of ber arrival at Versailles, and
vhere, sixteen years and a half later, she breathed
her last sigh! It was there that at eleven yeam of
age, torn forever from ber family, her friends, ber
country, she round herself alone among the splen-
dors of a strange palace. 'Twas there the child
grew, became a young girl, and then a young woman,
increasing daily in graces and attractions. There,
in the silence of the night she thought she beheld
the brilliant phantoms of the world, the seductive
images against vhich, perhaps, ber reason battled
with ber heart. There she recalled, to aid ber
in resisting the temptations of an ardent soul, the
austere instructions of Madame de Maintenon, who
had written to ber: "Have a horror of sin. Vice is
full of evils and afflictions, even in this world.
Thcre is no joy, no repose, no true delight, but in

THE .DUCHESS OF BURGU.N.DI r 247

serving God." It vas there that she beheld death
coming, and welcomed its approach with a noble and
religious courage. Poor Princess! Even in presence
of her dead body disputes over etiquette svent on.
"Four bishops sitting in rochet and camail at the
right side of the bed relieved each other like the
ladies, when notified by the agents of the clergy.
They claimed chairs with backs, kneeling cushions,
and a holy water sprinkler. The first two were
refused them; they had nothing but folding stools,
and no cushions. They made such an outcry that
they got the sprinkler."
Strictly speaking, history is nothing but a long
funeral sermon. The more closely it is studied, the
more it is seen to be full of tears. The view of a
palace is as fruitful in lessons as that of a cemetery,
and the château of Versailles, when one is surrounded
there by the illustrious shades that have occupied it,
suddenly assumes the aspect of an immense cata-
falque. The gildings are veiled with crape. One
fancies that the fountains are weeping, and the sun
of the great King is hidden behind a heavy cloud.
Death is in every chamber, if stands at every door to
make its dismal voice listened to, and to repeat the
great saying: Vanity, all is vanity.

CONCLUSION

THE TOMBS

T is the most melancholy of ai1 spectacles fo ro
behold, in the trappings of sadness and death
the places which were once the theatre of splendors
or of fêtes. While listening to the prayers of the
dying succeed the tiare of trumpets and joyous orches-
tral harmonies, one reflects painfully on the things of
earth, and comprehends the inanity of glory, riches,
and pleasure. The courtiers of Louis XIV. had to
endure this impression when '" this monarch of happi-
ness, of majesty, of apotheosis, ' as Saint-Simon says,
was about to breathe his last. The incomparable
Gallery of Mirrors was now merely the vestibule of
a death chamber. The triumphant paintings of
Lebrun seemed darkened. The place of transports
had changed its aspect; the modern Olympus was
vanishing before the great Christian idea, and this
King, "the terror of his neighbors, the astonishment
of the universe, the father of kings, grander than
all his ancestors, more magnificent than Solomon, ''l

a Massillon, Oraison.funèbre de Louis le Grand.
248

THE TOMB,, 249

seemed to be saying with the Preacher: "I have sur-
passed in glory and in xvisdom all those who have
preceded me in Jerusalem, and I hve recognized
that even in this there was nothing but vanity and
affliction of spirit."
During the last illness of him xvho had been the
S un-King, the court remained all dty long in the
Gallery of Mirrors. No one stopped in the OEil-de-
Boeuf except the domestic servants and the physi-
cians. As to M;tdame de Maintenon, in spire of ber
eighty years and her infirmities, she nursed the august
invalid with great devotion, and often remained beside
his bed for fourteen hours together. "The King
bade me adieu three times," she related afterwards to
the ladies of Saint-Cyr ; "the first rime, he said he had
no regret but that of lcaving me, but that we should
soon see each other again ; I begged him to think no
longer of anything but God. The second, he asked
me to pardon him for hot having lived well enough
with me ; he added that he had hot ruade me happy,
but that he had always loved and esteemed me
equally. He was weeping, and he asked if any one
were present. I told him no; then he said: 'Even
though they should hear me crying with you, no one
xvould be surprised.' I went away so as not to do
him any harm. The third time he said to me:
' What is going to become of you, for you have noth-
ing?' I answered him: 'I ara a nonentity; do hot
think of anything but God,' and I left him."
Louis XIV. deserved the name of Great until his

50 THE WOMEIV OF VERSAILLES

l.test breath. He died still better than he had lived.
AI1 that was elevated, mjestic, grandiose in this
chosen soul is summed up in the finul moment. His
death is that of a king, a hero, and a saint. Like the
first Christians, he nmde a sort of public confession ;
he said, August 26, 1715, to those who were admitted
to his presence : "Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for
the bad examples I bave given you. I have to thank
you much for the way in which you have served me,
and the attachment and fidelity you bave always
shown for me .... I see that I am affected, and
that I am affecting you also ; I beg your pardon for
it. Adieu, gentlemen: I rely upon your remember-
ing me sometimes." He gave his blessing the same
day to the little Dauphin, and addressed him in these
beautiful words: "M N dear child, you are going to
be the greatest king of the world. Never forget your
obligations to God. Do hot imitate me in wars; try
always to preserve peace with your neighbors, and to
assist your people as much as you can, which I have
had the m[sfortune not to be able to do on account
of the necessities of the State. Always follow wise
counsels, and remember well that it is to God you
owe all that you are. I give you Père Letellier for
confessor; follow his advice, and always remember
the obligations which you owe to Madame de Ven-
taflour." 1

I M. Le Roi, in his work entitled Curiosités historiques, hus proved
that these were the exact terres employed by Louis XIV. in his
address to Louis XV.

During the night of August 27-28, the dying
man was seen joining his hands at every moment;
he said his customary prayers, and at the Confiteor he
smote his breast. In the morning of the 28th he
saw in the mirror on his chimney piece two domes-
tics who were shedding tears. "Why are you weep-
ing?" he said to them; "did you think I was im-
mortal ?" An elixir intended to restore him to life
was handed him. "To life or to death!" he an-
swered, taking the glass; "all that pleases God."
His confessor asked if he suffered much. "Eh!
no," he replied, "that is what displeases me ; I would
like to surfer more ia expiatio, of my sins." In
giving his orders, August -09, he happened to speak
of the Dauphin as the young king. And as he
observed the movement it caused in those around
him : "Eh ! why ?" he exclaimed, "that gives me
no pain." This is what made Massillon say: "This
monarch environed by such glory, and who saw
around him so many objects capable of arousing his
desires or his tenderness, cast mt even one regretful
glance on life. How grand is rn,n when he is so
through faith ! . . . Vanity has never had more than
the mask of grandeur; it is grace which is the reality."
During the daytime of August 29, the dying man
lost consciousness, and it was thought he had but a
few more hours to live. "You are no longer neces-
sary to him," said his confessor to Madame de Main-
tenon ; "you can go away." Marshal de Villeroy
exhorted ber hot to remain any longer, and to go to

252 THE WOME.N OF VERSAILLES

Saint-Cyr, where she could rest after so much emo-
tion. He posted the King's guards along the road
and lent her his carriage. " Some popular commo-
tion may be feared," said he, "and possibly the road
may not be safe." Madame de Maintenon, enfeebled,
disturbed by age and sorrow, ruade the mistake of
listening to such pusillanimous counsels. Posterity
will always reproach her with a weakness unworthy
of this woman of intelligence and feeling. There
are positions which oblige. Madame de Maintenon
ought to have closed the eyes of the great King,
and prayed beside Iris corpse. The courtiers, who
prescribed the resolutions of egoism and fear, are
chiefly to be blamed. Ah! how they are abandoned,
"the gods of flesh and blood, the gods of clay and
dust," when they are going clown to the grave. A
few domestics alone lament them. The crowd is
indifferent, or it rejoices. The courtiers turn toward
the rising sun. Alas! what a contrast between the
throne and the coffin! The death of a man is
always a subject for philosophic reflections. What
is it then, when he who dies bas called himself
Louis XIV.
August 80, the dying man returned to conscious-
ness and asked for Madame de Maintenon. She was
sent for to Saint-Cyr. She came back. The King
recognized ber, said a few more words, and then
drowsed. In the evening she descended the marble
staircase which she was never to ascend again, and
went to Saint-Cyr to shut herself up forever.

•  O$BS 253

On Saturday, August 31, towards eleven o'clock
in the evening, the prayers for the dying were said
for Louis XIV. Ho recited them himself in a
louder voice than any of the spectators ; and seemed
still more majestic on his deathbed than on his
throne. When the prayers were ended ho recog-
nized Cardinal de Rohan and said to him : " These
are the lust graces of the Church." Several rimes
he repeated: "lVunc et in ttora mortis, low and at
the hour of out death." Thon ho said: "O God,
corne unto mine aid ; O Lord, make baste fo help me."
These were his last words. The agony was begin-
ning. If lasted all night, and on Sunday, Septem-
ber 1, 1715, at a quarter past eight in the morning,
Louis XIV., aged seventy-seven years lacking three
days, during sixty-two of which ho had been king,
yielded his great soul to God.

One does not terminate the study of a memorable
epoch without a sentiment of regret. After having
lived for some time by the life of a celebrated per-
sonage, one suffers from his death, and is affected at
his tomb. When reading Saint-Simon, does not one
seem present at the death agony of Louis XIV., and
feel the tears welling into his eyes as if ho were
mingling with the loyal servitors who are weeping
for the best of masters and the greatest of kings ?
As soon as the tidings of the death of Louis XIV.
reached Saint-Cyr, Mademoiselle d'Aumale entered
Madame de Maintenon's chamber. "Madame," said

9.54 THE WOMEN OF I/ERSAI.LLES

she, "the whole house is at prayer, in the choir."
Madame de Maintenon understood, she raised her
hands to heaven, weeping, and then repaired to the
church, where she was present at the office for the
dead. Then she dismissed her servants, and got rid
of her carriage, "unable," as she said, "to reconcile
herself to feeding horses while so many young girls
were in need." She lived in her modest apartment in
profound peace. She submitted to the regulations
of the house as far as her age permitted, and never
went out except to go to the village to visit the
sick and the poor. When Peter the Great went to
Saint-Cyr, June 10, 1717, the illustrious octogenarian
• *vas suffering. The Czar sat down beside the bed of
this woman whose name he had heard so often. He
asked ber, through an interpreter, if she were ill.
She answered Yes. He wanted to know what her
malady was. "A great old age," she replied.
Madame de Mairtenon died at Saint-Cyr,..A_ugusk__
15, 1719. For t',vo days she remained exposed on
ber bed "with an air so sweet and so devout, that
one would bave said she wa. praying to God." 1 She
was buried in the choir of the church. A modest
slab of marble indicates the spot where ber body
reposes. It was there the novices went to weep
and pray before dedicating themselves forever to
the Lord.
Now that we bave quitted Versailles, let us go

1 2ilCoires des d«mes de Saint- Cyr.

THE TOMBS

down into the crypts where lie these beautiful hero-
ines, these famous women whose gracious figures we
have endeavored to evoke. Mademoiselle de La
Vallière rests at Paris in the Carmelite church of
the rue Saint-Jacques; Queen Marie Thérèse, the
two Duchesses of Orleans, the Bavarian dauphiness,
and the Duchess of Burgundy at Saint-Denis. There
they sleep their slumber, in those gloomy abodes
where, as Bossuet says, the ranks are so crowded, so
prompt is death to fill the places. There one should
go to meditate, there to draw the conclusions from
histories which bave their lessons, there to listen
to the great Christian maxim: Memento ]wmo quia
pulvis es, et in pulverim reverteris.
Bossuet says in speaking of the Pharaohs, that they
did not even possess their sepulchres. Such was also
the destiny of Louis XIV. This potentate who had
given laws to Europe, did not even possess his tomb.
The profaners of graves descended into the subterra-
nean abode of "annihilated princes," and in spite of
their rear-guard of eight centuries of kings, as Cha-
teaubriand says, the great shade of Louis XIV. could
not defend the majesty of sepulchres which all the
world had deemed inviolable.
During the session of July 21, 1794, Barrère read
to the Convention, in the name of the Committee of
Public Safety, a long report in which he demanded,
that in order to celebrate the anniversary of August
Tenth, the mausoleums of Saint-Denis should be
destroyed. "Under the monarchy," said he, "even

256 TltE WOME1V OF VERSAILLES

tombs had learned to flatter kings; royal pomp and
pride could not be lessened on this theatre of death,
and the sceptre bearers who have caused so many
woes to France and to humanity seem still, even
in the grave, to pride themselves on a vanished
grandeur. The powerful hand of the Republio
should pitilessly efface these mausoleums whicb
recall the frightful memory of kings." The Con-
vention carried by acclamation a decree conformable
to this report. Considering that "the country was
in danger and lacked cannons wherewith to defend
itself," it decided that "the tombs of the former
kings should be destroyed on the ensuing 10th oi
August." It appointed commissioners empowered to
go to Saint-Denis for the purpose of proceeding "to
the exhuming of the former kings and queens,
princes and princesses," and decreed the breaking ot
the cofiins in order to melt the lead, and send it to
the national foundries.
This odious decree was strictly executed. 1 Kings,
queens, princes, and princesses were torn from their
sepulchres. The lead was carried, as fast as it was
round, to a cemetery in which a foundry had been
established, and the corpses were cast into the com-
mon grave. The vandalism of the revolutionists and
the atheists took delight in this spectacle. Assuredly,
as Chateaubriand writes, "God, in the effusion of

1 See the interesting work of M. George dHeylli, Les Tombe.*
royales de Saint-1)enis.

TItE TOMBS 257

His wrath, had sworn by Himself to punish France.
Seek not on earth the causes of such events; they
are higher than that."
A few weeks later came the turn of Madame de
Maintenon's dead body. In January, 1794, while
the church of Saint-Cyr was being transformed into
hospital wards, the workmen perceived a slab of
black marble amidst the débris of the devastated
choir. It was the tomb of Madame de Maintenon.
They broke it, opened the vault, and taking out the
body, dragged it into the court with dreadful yells
and threw it, stripped and mutilated, into a hole in
the cemetery. On that day the unrecognized spouse
of Louis XIV. was treated like a queen!
Thus then, these illustrious heroines of Versailles,
the good Marie Thérèse, the clever Maintenon, the
melancholy Bavarian dauphiness, the haughty Prin-
cess Palatine, the alluring Duchess of Burgundy,
were dispossessed of their tombs. Listening to the
tale of such iconoclastic and sacrilegious rage, the
heart contracts and feels the anguish of an inexpres-
sible sadness. A sentiment of holy wrath against
such odious profanations and savage furies blends
with profound reflections on the nothingness of
human things. More eloquent, more terrible than
any funeral sermon, history assumes a sepulchral
tone and speaks more forcibly than the preachers of
the great century. The shades of these once fiat-
tered women come before us one after another, and
as they pass each seems to say like Fénelon in Iris

58 THE tVOME.N OF VERSAILLES

book of prayers: "What does hot one do to find a
false happiness? What rebuffs, what thwartings
does not one endure for a phantom of worldly glory ?
What pains for wretched pleasures of which nothing
is left but remorse?" From the depths of the dust
of graves profound, the dazzled eye suddenly per-
ceives arising a pure, an incorruptible radiance which
pl.ces in their true light all things here below, and
one recalls the saying of Massillon before the coflïn
of Louis XIV. : "God alone is great, my brethren."

INDEX

Apartment days, at Versailles, 139-
141.
Arnauld, his words concerning wed-
ding of Louis XIV. and Madame
de Maintenon, 124.
Athalie, Racine's, performance of,
153.
Augustine, Saint. See Saint Augus-
tine.

Barrère, 255.
Bassompierre, words of, concerning
Château of Versailles, 29, 30.
Bavarian Dauphiness, the, dates of
ber birth and marriage, 41, 104;
her sad life, 104, 116; her death,
104; her life at Munich, 105;
meets Bossuet, 105; accompanies
Bossuet to Versailles, 106; birth
of her son, 107, 108 ; occupies the
Queen's room, 111 ; her sadness,
112,113, 115 ; deserted by all, 113;
painting of by Delutel, 114; her
words to the Princess Palatine,
115; foresaw her end, 115; her
burial place, 255 ; her tomb dese-
crated, 257.
Berry, Duchess of, the symbol of
her age, 26.
Blois, Mademoiselle de, 41. See
Conti, Princess de.
Blois, Mademoiselle, Duchess de
Chartres also called, 224.
Bossuet, denies absolution to Mad-
ame de Montespan, 74; his ex-
hortations to Louis XIV., 76, 78,
79; visits Madame de Montespan

for religious counsel, 77; criti-
cised for his conduct, 77, 78;
unable to prevent meeting of
Louis XIV. and Madame de
Montespan, 81; meets and con-
ducts the Bavarian Dauphiness
to Versailles, 105, 106; received
cordially by Louis XIV., 106; his
words on the revocation of tho
Edict of Nantes, 192, 193, 210.
Bourbon, Duchess of, her birth and
marriage, 215, 221; her beauty,
222; her amour with the second
Prince de Conti, 222, 223; loses
her husband, 223.
Bourbon, Duke de, 215, 221, 223.
Bourdaloue, active in the conver-
sion of Louis XIV., 75; his ex-
, hortations, 75, 76.
Burgundy, Duchess of, 10, 13, 18;
the symbol of her age, 26; her
arrival in France, 329; charms
Louis XIV., 229, 230; attentions
of Louis XIV. to, 231 ; her educa-
tion finished by Madame de Main-
tenon, 231, 232; ceremonies at
her marriage, 232-234; her at-
tractiveness, 234, 235; her affec-
tion and admiration for Louis
XIV., 235 ; her pleasures, 235 ; her
portrait, 236; Saint-Simon's ad-
miration for, 236; her numerous
charms, 236, 237; the victim of
calunny, 237; her anxiety on
behalf of ber family, 238; her
sorrows, 238, 239; becomes tho
Dauphiness, 240; convinced that

259.

260 iv»Ex

ber end was near, 240, 241; ber
death, 242; her burial, 243; re-
ported to bave betrayed state
secrets, .AS; a review of the ca-
reer of, 246, 247; ber burial place,
255; her tomb desecrated, 257.
Burgundy, Duke of, 232-234, 240,
242.

Caylus, Marquise de, ber words con-
cerning Marie Thérèse's timidity,
60; concerning the King's bas-
tards, 63 ; concerning Madame
de Montespan, 69, 72, 73; con-
cerning Louis XIV., 72; ber de-
scription of the interview between
Louis XIV. and Madame de
Montespan, 81, 82; concerning
grief of Madame de Maintenon
and Madame de Montespan at
death of Marie Thérèse, 111 ; con-
cerning the Bavarian Dauphin-
ess, 113; educated by Madame
de Maintenon, 143, 145; her
cleverness, 144; ber birth and
parentage 144 ; conveyed to Saint-
Germain, 144 ; becomes a Catholic,
144; ber hand sought in mar-
riage, 145, 146 ; her marriage, 146;
ber grace and wit, 146; takes part
in presentation of Esther, 147-
149, 151; her love of pleasure,
153; contracts a liaison with the
Duke de Villeroy, 154; finds the
court dull, 154; sent away from
the court, 154, 155 ; pardoned and
returns, 155; her b'ouvenrs, 155,
156.
Chambre des Bassans, 136, 137.
Chartres, Duchess de, her birth and
marriage, 215, 224, _'225 ; ber
timidity before Louis XIV., 226 ;
her intelligence, 226; ill-treated
by Saint-Simon, 226, 227.
Chartres, Duke de, 178, 179, 215,
224, 225.
Chasles, Émile, his words con-
cerning iIadame de hiaintenon,
188.

Château of Versailles, the. See
Versailles.
Châteaurottx, Duchess de, her brief
life, 24.
Choin, Mademoiselle, 218, 219.
Choisy, Abbé de, his words con-
cerning Louis XIV. and Madame
de Maintenon, 120; his words
concerning Marquise de Caylus,
146.
Clagny, Château of, 80, 210.
Clermont, M., 219.
Colbert, 71.
Condé, Prince of, urges Louis XIV.
to legitimate his bastard chil-
dren, 63, 227.
Conti, Prince de, 215, 216, 218.
Conti, the second Prince de, 222,
223.
Conti, Princess de, ber birth and
marriage, 41, 215; her legitima-
tion, 216; the words of Louis
XIV. concerning, 216; ber grace
and attractiveness, 216, 218; ber
marriage, 216; loses ber hus-
band, 218; ber intrigue with M.
Clermont, 219 ; ber pleasures,
218» 220.

Dauphin, the, 113, 114, 218, 219,
240.
Dangeau, 210, 229, 230.
Deshoulières, Madame, lines of,
193.
Diana of Poitiers, 121.
Dubarry, Madame, 18.
Duclos, his statement that the
Duchess of Burgundy betrayed
state secrets, 245.

Elisabeth, Madame, 18.
.Esther, Racine's, performance of,
at Saint-Cyr, 148-153.

Fâcheux, Le, performance of, at
Versailles, 31.
Femmes Savantes, Let» performed
at Versailles,

INDEX 261

Féuelon, his words te Madame de
Maintenon0 188 ; approves prin-
ciple of revocation of Edict of
Nantes, 194.
Fëtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus,
performed at Versailles, 32.
Fontanges, Mademoiselle de,
Louis XIV.'s passion for, 48, 64,
83, 84.

Georges Dandin, performed at
Versailles, 32.
Girardin, Saint Marc, his words
conceruing Madame de Mainte-
non, 86.
Grand-Couvert, the hall of the, 8.
Gratry, Père, quoted, 13.

Hausset, Madame du, her words of
sympathy for Madame de Pom-
padour, 24.
Henrietta of England, 230.
History, nothing but a long fu-i
neral sermon, 247.

La Bessola, 113.
La Bruyère, quoted, 100.
La Fayette, Madame de, her words
concerning Louis XIV., 46; her
words concerning the Bavarian
Dauphiness, 114, 115.
La Fontaine, his dedication to
Madame de Montespan of his
seventh book of fables, 70.
Lamartine, verses of, quoted, 12;
defines the sentiment of Louis
XIV. for Madame de Maintenon,
122.
Lamballe, Princess de, 19.
Lavallée, his work on Madame de
Maintenon. 87, 88, 199; his words
concerning alterations at Ver-
sailles, 132; conceruing apart-
ment of Madame de Maintenon,
134, 135; conceruing Madame de
Maintenon's instructions to the
ladies of Saint-Cyr, 165; his
change of opinion conceruing
Madame de Maintenon, 198, 199.

Lécuyer, Abbé, refuses absolution
te Madame de Montespan, 74.
Leczinska, Marie. See Marie Lec-
zinska.
Lenclos, Ninon de, 92, 122.
Letters of Madame de Maintenon,
199 et seq.; of Madame de é-
vigné, 201 et seq.
Louis X1V., his apartments at Ver-
sailles, 2; his words te the aged
Condé on the staircase at Ver-
sailles, 5; his statue, 6, 7; his
first visit te Versailles, 30; his
festivities at Versailles, 30 et
seq.; his attachment te Ver-
sailles, 30, 34; his apartments
at Versailles, 36, 37; intimate
relation between Louis XIV. and
Versailles, 39, 40; his strong
personality, 42; estimate of his
character, 43 et seq. ; his polite
and amiable disposition, 43 ; his
incessant work, 44; his worship
of glory and the ideal, 45; his
feeling towards women, 45, 46;
poetic quality of his amours, 46 ;
his words concerning Madame
de Maintenon's sensibility, 46;
his personal attractions, 47; his
tenderness, 46, 47 ; the beginning
of his repentance, 48; his pas-
sion for Mademoiselle de Fon-
tanges, 48, 64; his feeling for
the Duchess de la Vallière, 47-
50; his conversion and refor-
mation, 50, 51; his gravity as a
sovereign, 51, 52; his principle
of authority, 52, 53, 184; Napo-
leon's words of admiration for,
53; his sense of guilt towards
Marie Thérèse, 60; legitimating
his adulterous children, 61-63,
95 ; his repentance, 63, 64, 67, 83;
makes changes in the Queen's
household, 64; his return of
affection for the Queen, 65, 66;
his words concerning Montespan,
71 ; his religious disposition. 72 ;
resolves te break with Madame

262

de Montespan, 74; separates
from Madame de Montespan,
76, 77 ; his secret correspondence
with Madame de Montespan, 80;
meets Madame de Montespan on
his return from his army, 81, 82 ;
final conversion, 84, 85; recog-
nizes good qualities of Madame
de blaintenon, 95, 96; receives
Bavarian Dauphiness cordially,
106; his attention to the Bava-
rian Dauphiness at birth of her
child, 107, 108 ; his heart inclined
more toward religion, 108; his
grief at death of his wife, 109-
111; his kindness, 110; enter-
tains the Bavarian Dauphiness,
112; his love for Madame de
Maintenon, 118; his compler
sentiment for Madmne de Main-
tenon, 119, 120; the zenith of his
power, 118; lofty nature of his
attachment to Madame de Main-
tenon, 122, 123; his marriage to
Madmne de Maiutenon, 123; his
daily lire at Versailles, 137-142;
witnesses performance of Esther
at Saint-Cyr, 149 et se.: his
praise of the performance, 152;
he dismisses Marquise de Caylus
ïrom the court, 154 ; pardons her,
155; visits Saint-Cyr, 161; finds
Saint-Cyr a consolation, 162; his
detractors among historians, 184
et seq. : sole toaster of his king-
dom, 188, 189; true relation be-
txveen him and Madame de
Maintenon on state affairs, 188
et seq. : his wars and love of
luxury, 189-191 ; ïorced to revoke
the Edict of Hantes, 191-193;
his first dislike for Madame de
Maintenon, 95, 198; his indiffer-
ence to Madame de Montespan,
208, 214; the daughters of, 215
et seq. ; his words concerning the
Princess de Conti, 216; threatens
to confine his three daughters
in their country houses, 227; his

tenderness for his children, 227;
visits Duchess of Bourbon dur-
ing her attack of small-pox, 227,
228 ; receives Marie-Adélaïde,
229; his praise of Marie-Adé-
]aïde, 230; his attentions to
Marie-Adélaïde, 231 ; his interest
in the Duchess of Burgundy, 235,
2A0; his grief at the death of his
son, °.43; his firmness under
trials, 244; his ]ast hours, 2A8-
253; his farewell words to
Madame de Maiutenon, 249; his
public confession, 250; his last
words to the Dauphin, 250; his
ca]mness, 251; his death, 253;
his tomb destroyed, 255, 256.
Louis XV., 9; his words at funeral
of Madame de Pompadour, 24;
the favorites of, ?a3 ; his birth, 242.
Louis XVI., 11, 12.

Maine, Duke du, 210, 2°.5.
Maintenon, lladame de, her char-
acter, 17, 86, et seq., 96-98; her
enuui, 22; the symbol of her age,
26; ber position at Versailles in
1682, 42 ; her sensibility, 46; her
influence for good, {kS, 85, 96-98 ;
diverse opinions concerning ber
character,'87, 88, 9(-98; her birth,
89; ber childhood, 89, 90; her
marriage to Scarron, 91; her
salon,  ; loses her hasband, 92 ;
admired and respected, 92, 93;
her simple, charming manners,
93; obtains renewal of her pen-
sion through Madame de bIontes-
pan, 94 ; her charity, 94 ; becomes
governess at court, 94; takes
charge of the illegitimate chil-
dren of Louis XIV., 95; ber
pension increased, 95; her disa
greements with Madame de Mon-
tespan, 96, 99; purchases the
estate of Maintenon, 96 ; accused
of hypocrisy, 96, 97; her opposi-
tion to the amours of Louis XIV.
and Madame de Montespan, 99;

263

her position at court assured be-
yond attack, 101, 102; her words
at the birth of son of Bavarian
Dauphiness, 108; her quarrels
with Madame de Montespan ap-
peased, 108, 109; her conduct at
death of Marie Thérèse, 111 ; ber
words concerning ber good for-
tune, 117 ; ber words at marriage
of Louis XIV. and Marie Thérèse,
117; the love of Louis XIV. for,
118 et seq.; did not love the King,
118; espoused by Louis XIV.,
118; ber beauty well preserved,
122 ; her marriage to Louis XIV.,
123; ber saduess, 124, 127; re-
tains her influence over Louis
XIV., 126; she regrets Scarron's
bouse, 127; ber apartment neg-
lected by posterity, 128, 129; ber
apartment almost unrecogniza-
ble, 132, 133 ; as it originallywas,
133-135; her daily lire, 135; her
retinue, 135; educates Mademoi-
selle de Murçay-Villette, Mar-
quise de Caylus, 143,145 ; forbids
tragedy at Saint-Cyr, 147; urges
Racine to write moral poem for
Saint-Cyr, 147; her life at Saint-
Cyr, 157 et seq. ; her devotion to
Saint-Cyr, 162, 163 ; ber words of
counsel to the ladies of Saint-Cyr,
162-166 ; ber distrust of the court
of Versailles, 167; attacked by
the Princess Palatine, 167, 168;
reproves the Princess Palatine
for her insults, 180, 181; her de-
tractors among historians, 184
et seq. ; her truc attitude towards
the King in state affairs, 188,
189; her desire for peace, 189,
190; her distaste of luxury, 190,
191; her attitude towards the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
190, 191, 194-196; moderate in
religion and politics, 195, 196;
a pious, sincere woman, 196, 197;
her daily prayer, 196, 197; her
noble devotion to the King, 197 ;

disliked at first by Louis XIV.,
95, 198; a character not easily un-
derstood,.198; Lavallée's chauge
of opinion couceruing, 198, 199;
her letters, 199-206 ; compared
with Madame de Sévigné, 201-
206; finishes the education of
Marie Adélaïde, 231,232; at the
death-bed of Louis XIV., 249;
retires to Saint-Cyr, 252; ber
last days, 254; ber death, 254;
her burial place, 254; her tomb,
destroyed, 257.
Malade imaginaire, Le, performed
at Versailles, 33.
Mariage forcé, Le, performed at
Versailles, 31.
Marie Adélaïde, afterwards Duch-
ess of Burgundy. Sec Burgundy,
Duchess of.
lIarie Anne Victoire, Inîanta of
Spain, 10.
Marie Antoinette, defended by ber
body-guard, 8; her manner in
receiving, 9; main events of her
lire at Yersailles, 10-13; a sym-
bol of her age, 27.
Marie Leczinska, the amiable and
good, 9, 18; her death, 9, 10; ber
virtue, 27.
5Iarie Thérèse, her apartments at
Versailles, 7 et seq., 37; her salon,
8; her bedchamber, 9; her death,
9 ; her character, 17, 54, 55 ; dates
of her birth and marriage, 41;
ber parentage, 55 ; her personal
appearance, 56; her timid, retir-
ing disposition, 56, 57 ; her good
sense, 57 ; her devotion to Louis
XIV., 57, 60; ber children, 58;
distressed by her husband's infi-
delities, 58; her relations with
Duchess de la Vallière, 58, 59;
hot deceived by Madame de Mon-
tespan, 60; her fear of Louis
XIV., 60, 61; Louis XIV.'s return
of affection for, 65, 66; ber
charity, 65, 66; ber words of
gratitude for Madamo do Main-

264 IV»EX

tenon, 109; her death, 109, 111;
her burial place, 255; ber tomb
desecrated, 257.
Massillon, quoted, 5, 19, 23, 73,115
208, 209, 251.
Michelet, quoted, 190, 192, 245.
Mirrors, Gallery of, 3.
Molière, performs at Versailles, 30-
32; quoted, 70.
Monseigneur, The Dauphin known
as. See Dauphin, the.
Montespan, Marquis de, 68, 71,212.
Montspan, Marquise de, her char-
acter, 17, 25; supplanted by Ma-
dame de Maintenon, 21 ; the sym-
bol of her age, 25; her position
at Versailles in 1682, 42; her
sense of shame beîore the Queen,
59, 60; loses her influence at
court, 67; her personal charms,
68; her birth and marriage, 68;
disinc]ined at first te gallantry,
69; the period of ber fayot, 69;
La Fontaine's flattery of, 70; the
children of, 71, 94, 95 ; ber lustre,
72; her uneasiness of conscience,
721 her religious disposition, 72,
73; refused absolution by the
Abbé Lécuyer, 74; retires frein
the court, 77 ; returns te her chît-
teau of Clagny, 80; meets Louis
XIV. on his return frein the
army, 81, 82; ber influence wan-
ing, 82--84; appointed superin-
tendent of the household of the
Queen, 84; suspected of poisoning
the Duchess of Fontanges, 84;
obtains renewal of pension for.
Madame de Maintenon, 94; ber
bad feeling for Madame de Main-
tenon, 96, 99, 100; believes Ma-'
dame de Maintenon is trying te 
become the King's mistress, 99,
100; her downfall deserved, 100,
101; her quarrels with Madame
de Maintenon appeased, 108, 109;
ber conduct at death of Marie
Thérèse, 111 ; ber unhappy lire at
court after her downfall, 207-210;

leaves Versailles, 210, 211; ber
life of repentance and humility,
211, 212; her last years, 212, 213;
her death and burial, 213; for-
gotten, 214; ber children forbid-
den te mourn her death, 214, 2°A) ;
Murçay-Villette, Mademoiselle de,
afterwards Marquise de Caylus.
See Caylus, Marquise de.

lantes, Edict of, 190, 191 et seq.
lantes, Mademoiselle de, 41 ; after-
wards Duchess of Bourbon. See
Bourbon, Duchess of.
lapoleon, the first, his admiration
for Louis XIV., 53; his prefer-
ence for the letters of Madame
de Maiutenon, 202.
lesle, De, the sisters, 18.
lisard, Désiré, his opinion of
lIadame de lIaintenon's letters,
202.
loailles, Duke de, his work on
Madame de Maintenon, 87, 88.
Noailles, Viscountess de, ber words
concerning the Duchess of Bur-
gundy, 241,242.

Orle£ns, Duchess of, Princess Pala-
tine, her character, 17, 168 et
seq., 182 ; her words at the death
of the Queen of Spain, 21; date
of" her birth and marriage, 41;
ber homage te Louis XIV., 43;
her hatred of Madame de Main-
tenon, 167, 168, 181; ber letters,
169, 180; compared with Saint-
Simon, 169, 170; her birth and
marriage, 170 ; sets out for
France, 170; her ugliness, 171;
her dislike for Versailles, 171,
172, 177, 179, 180; her lack of
affection for her husband, 172;
net in sympathy with the Cath.
olic religion, 173; ber protest
against religious persecution,
174 ; net interested in theological
discussions, 174; ber ideas of
various kinds of piety, 175, 176;

her unhappy life at Versailles,
176, 177 ; her poor opinion of her '
husband, 178; unhappy in ber
son, 178, 179; ber hatred of the
royal bastards, 179; slaps ber
son's face for marrying one of
the King's illegitimate children,
179, 224, 2°_5 ; ber corrcspondcnce
opened, 180, 181; quiets down
as a widow, 181; dies a good
Christian, 181; ber burial place,
255 ; ber tomb desecrated, 257.
Orleans, Duke of, 2A4.

Palatine, Princess. See Orleans,
Duchess of.
Philip V., of Spain, 9.
Plaisirs de l'ile enchantde, per-
formance of, at Versailles, 30.
Poitiers, Diana of, 121.
Pompadour, Madame de, her char-
acter, 18; ber meluncholy, 24 ;
neglected and forgotten, 24 ;
Louis XV.'s words at funeral
of, '.
Princesse d'Élide, performed at
Versailles, 31.

Racine, quoted, 87 ; renoum es the
theatre, 147, 148 ; composes
JEsther, 148.
Rigault, Hippolyte, his words con-
cerning Mademoiselle de 1  Val-
lière and Madame de Maint.enon,
86.

Saint Augustine, quoted, 23, °.24, .°09.
Saint-Cyr, the pupils of, 147-153;
performance of Esther at, 148-
153; Madame de Maintenon at,
157 et seq. ; compared to Ver-.
sailles, 158, 159; date of its open-
ing, 160; Louis XIV. visits, 161;
a consolation to Louis XIV.,I
162; Madame de Maintenon's I
devotion to, 162, 163.
Saint-Denis, the mausoleums of,[
destroyed, 255-257.
Saint-Germain, château of, 34.

Saint-Simon, his words concerning
Louis XIV., 43; conceraing
Madame de Maintenon, 122 ;
concerning marriage of Louis
XIV. and Madame de Mainte-
non, I?A; concerning the Mar-
quise de Caylus, 146; an objec-
tionable historical witness, 184-
188; his words concerning revo-
cation of Edict of lantes, 193;
his ill-treatment of the Duchess
of Chartres, 226, 227; his admi-
ration for the Duchess of Bur-
gundy, 236.
Scarron, 91, 92.
Scudéry, Mademoiselle de, 92.
Sévigné, Madame de, her words
concerning lire and death, 20;
her words concerning Madame
de Montespan, 21, 72, 80, 82, 83;
concerning Madame de Mainte-
non, 101; concerning revocation
of Edict of Nantes, 193; com-
pared with Madame de Mainte-
non, 201-206; ber rich natural
endowments, 203, 204; ber let-
ters, 201-206; ber words con-
cerning the Princess de Conti,
216; concerning Duchess de la
Vallière, 217.
Spinola, 107.

Tartuffe, performance of, at Ver-
sailles, 31.
Tombs, the royal, desecration of,
255-258.

Vallière, Duchess de la, portrait
of, by Mignard, 19; her clois-
ter life, 49, 50, 217; Marie Thé-
rèse's relations with, 58, 59; ber
death, 220; ber burial place,
255.
Versailles, during the Commnne,
1 et seq. ; haunted by memories,
1o-14 ; women of, °12-27 ; the pass-
ing away of the glory of, 20; the
chateau of, 29 et seq.; festivi-
ries at château of, 30 et seq. ;

266 nv»x

natural disadvantages of, 34, 35;
Louis XIV.'s fondness for, 30, 34 ;
the enlargements at, 36-38; the
King's apartments at, 36, 37; the
Queen's apartments at, 37; de-
script.ion of the palace, 38, 39;
much altered by posterity, 129
et seq.  the grand apartment in,

139; compared to Saint-Cyr, 158,
159.
Victoire, Marie Arme Christine.
See Bavarian Dauphiness.
Voltaire, quoted, 194, 244.

Women of Versailles, general re.
view of, 12-27.

DC ]26 .1413 ]906 SMC
Imbert de Saint-Amand,
Women of Versai 1 les

Arth